Volume 1 Episode 6 - Spice It Up
by Aintzane
Summary: Unexpected encounters can add spice to everyday life but knowledge of people is essential to an inquisitor's work. After the successful solution of the previous case Volentia is trusted to work together with an Ordo Malleus team to crush a cult of Tzeentch hiding a dangerous daemon weapon on a feudal world.
1. Prologue

Prologue

Smoke was belching from the shaded plateau beyond the mountain ridge. Tainted touch of Chaos that reigned over the deserted planet. No living creature dwelt in the barren rocklands but a smell of musk and ambergris lingered in the torrid air. Sergeant Pterophyllo could feel it even through the filters of his helmet. He had left the field camp with his squad when the scarlet sun of the alien world was rising to the dusty skies. Now it was noon, but the sorcerer was still far ahead though he was weakened by wounds.

The Blooded were a dangerous enemy, better not to cross ways with for any servant of the Ruinous Powers. Pterophyllo felt his sire's ancient wrath rise from the depths of his mind. Wrath he cherished and feared. Beastly ferocity hidden within exemplary Angels. Older than the black sorrow of the Great Angel's death, the mystery even the Chapter veterans seldom dare to recall.

They had chased the sorcerer from the Imperial borders till they ambushed his filthy gull-ship and Captain Aphael himself led the charge against the traitor. Yet the sorcerer's unholy power let him avoid judgment. With the help of his foul patron, he banished the gull to the warp and eluded down to the surface of the planet. He had to be found and sent to the hell where he belonged before he could heal his injuries.

Wrath and thirst for battle were growing stronger with every hour Pterophyllo stayed in this world. As he was driving his Land Speeder to the mountain pass, his twin hearts were pounding in fierce excitement as never before. Shadows of eerie beastly shapes flickered on the edge of his vision but were lost to sight when he turned towards them. The smell of musk was suffocating though he had turned the air cleaning to the maximum. Rock walls around were engraved with twisting lines of unknown symbols. Spirals, vertebrae, eerie runes. Pterophyllo had seen vaguely similar drawings once, years ago, when his company was purging a Genestealer lair. Alien repulsive sigils he couldn't stop staring at.

'The sun has reached its zenith but the shadow ahead is even deeper,' said Platax, the youngest of his Battle-Brothers. 'A foreboding place, I heard from the Company veterans.'

'Indeed.' Pterophyllo knew he shouldn't show anxiety or doubt before the warriors he commanded. 'There was a xenos shrine of false gods in the valley before the Heresy. A squad of Luna Wolves stood bravely against its foul guards till only the Sergeant was alive. When he returned to his ship, all traces of blasphemous worship were erased from the surface with orbital bombings. There's nothing to fear when we're ready to fight for the Emperor and Sanguinius.'

They started descending to the vale, and the unnatural shadow fell over them as if the sun had vanished in a moment. Pterophyllo looked up, at the tiny patch of blue sky above. They couldn't have gone that far below in a few seconds. The auspexes showed they were a thousand miles beneath the cliffs. Warp-tricks they should never mind, for the Emperor is stronger than the malignant entities that dwelt beyond the material realm. Pterophyllo checked up his vox. All connection lost. Librarian brothers were to assist him in the search for the foe but now he had to rely on himself and his squad only. He had taken a relic psychic sensor from the Librarium before they embarked so he still had an opportunity to bring the sorcerer to justice.

Pterophyllo activated the sensor and looked at the auspex screen on his wrist. The shadow was there as well. It seemed to veil the place from sunlight and psychic sight alike. After minutes of fruitless tinkering he finally found the enemy's soulfire barely glowing in the distant end of the canyon. The shadow had turned a searing blaze into a tiny spark.

Lights were of almost no help in the viscous, sultry darkness. Pterophyllo's hearts leapt when they suddenly found themselves before a towering outline of a palace built by no human hand. Scanners didn't see it until they stopped before its cyclopean gates. Even through the shadow Pterophyllo could see columns of fluent shapes that resembled animal spines and intertwined serpents, monstrous beasts carved upon the doorleaves of red gold. It couldn't have survived the bombings. The millennia of desolation. The rock under their feet trembled as if the palace was built of live throbbing flesh.

They got off their Land Speeders. Pterophyllo shouldn't show his confusion before his fighters. He stepped forward and knocked on the gates.

Swirling smoke gushed from the maws of engraved beasts forming a theroid shape the size of a Titan. But they couldn't retreat. They were His Angels who should know no fear. Pterophyllo met the abomination with a mighty strike of his power claw when its spectral tendrils lashed out to put them down.

When he came back to himself, he was back to the mountain pass over the sinister valley. Scraps of feverish visions still lingered in his mind, and he uttered the familiar words of the litany to chase them away. The only one alive. They had died in vain as the sorcerer had vanished from the planet. He clenched his fists in powerless fury on seeing what had been left from his brothers. Pools of drying blood in piles of ravaged armour weapons had been useless against the monster out of nightmares.

His own armour had been torn off from his body, and flaps of skin had been flayed from his face and trunk by the monster's smoke claws. He sat up and wiped his face but blood started running again when he touched the wounds. Drop after drop fell on the dry red soil, on the golden chalice sign still glistening over the broken remains of his power pack. Fleeting images flickered before his eyes again, leaving nothing behind but overpowering hunger. With a desperate howl Pterophyllo threw himself down to lick his own blood from the rocks.

Even weeks later, when he arrived to the Reclusiam to take his Pilgrimage vows, he didn't dare to tell what looked upon him in the palace that couldn't exist.


	2. I

Rain had stopped, and dim light of the twin moons oozed through the arches of boughs. The few remaining leaves fluttered in the wind amid tangled branches above. Locals rarely ventured to the old forest even at daytime in the gloomy last days of autumn. The spooky days when spirits leave the lands beyond to stalk the borders of human villages. The Forest of Ghosts, they called it, telling long tales of mean wood spirits and vanished lone wanderers during winter nights. Trying to stay in the shadows, I sneaked between two dead firs and crawled over a fallen oak. Angel would warn us if any of the Coven noticed our presence.

The owl stood hidden in piles of fallen leaves at the bottom of a deep ravine that separated the woodlands from village pastures already abandoned till the end of the long winter. None of the locals should see us. Their space-faring past forgotten after the Old Night, they lived a simple life of farming and mining. Their elders believed in mysterious angels from the stars sent by the Lord of Heaven but most of them hadn't seen any with their own eyes. Once in a century, sub-sector authorities sent a messenger to the High King to collect a symbolic tithe of crops and silver, but mostly to remind them about the Emperor watching them from the starry skies.

Psykers were rare among the population, and most members of the Coven had arrived to the backwater world from the other end of the sector to hide from the attention of the Ordo. The last tithe mission had returned to the capital ten years ago. Even Black Ships of the Astra Telepathica paid little attention to the system. They had probably spent more than a year in the Forest of Ghosts until weird images started appearing in astropathic messages all over the sub-sector cluster. Future investigation found out the traces of the Staff of Everchange, a lost artifact of terrible power, also led to this desolate region. It had been sold on a black market auction for a price enough to buy a whole planet. There were rumours that the enigmatic seller had brought along a few tomes of warp lore and a whole squad of Rubric Marines but neither the confirmation nor the customers hadn't been revealed yet.

After the successful completion of my previous commission my curators from the Conclave had decided I could be trusted a harder challenge. Along with a team of Ordo Malleus operatives led by High Inquisitor Lady Cichlasoma herself, we made our way to the planet where my crew was to sneak to the den of the heretics and retrieve the tainted weapon. The adepts of the Coven were a close-knit group of medium-level psykers devoted to the Lord of Change. There were no trained soldiers among them, but their witch-skills made them quite tough enemies.

'Found them,' Angel voxed drawing his bolter. 'Half a mile to the east. Human presence on the riverbank.'

A big owl took wing from a spreading hawthorn bough, and rainwater drops fell down tapping on my hat. Hooting echoed in the trees. I tried not to make noise as I stepped on the wet moss, fully concentrated to hide my aura from the psykers' glance. Sounds of running water came from beneath when we crossed a moonlit glade and started walking down a slope, knee-deep in withered grass.

'Nobody there by now,' I heard Angel's voice again. 'That's disturbing.'

'Skedaddled, as usual,' Uncled grunted and covered his mouth to muffle a bout of coughing. His lung wound hadn't fully healed yet, so he was walking a few steps behind to cover us with gunfire out of the skirmish.

At the foothill, where the river was winding between crooked willows, the entrance to the Coven's underground dwelling was hidden under the roots of an old overturned tree. The place stank of death. My psychic senses felt it once I ran down to the riverbank. I let Angel approach the den first. He scanned it with his auspexes and waved at me.

The door at the bottom of the steep stairway was open, and a stripe of reddish light fell on the ground steps from the inner chambers. I followed Angel in with both weapons ready. We passed through a few living rooms lit by oil lamps and torches. Full bowls of soup had been left on the tables, wet raincloaks hung at the doors. They had been here a mere hour ago. No guards or even traps left behind. But for the psychic reek, I'd be sure they had left through another exit, startled by the strangers.

I carefully examined the rooms looking for any clues, traces of rites or fights. I was still reluctant to use my psychic powers until we were sure there was no daemonic tricks involved. The cultists had probably felt safe in the forest as their door locks were simple, and all household goods they used were crude utensils and furniture made by local craftsmen.

The hall of worship was located a level below and separated from the living chambers by a wooden hatch. I prepared for the daemon weapon's mind-attack once Angel tore out the cover and jumped in. Nauseating echo of violent deaths struck me instead, much stronger than above. Ten bodies in whimsical garbs of coloured feathers lay on the floor around a wooden altar in the center. The carved wood still kept a faint trail of the weapon's presence. Sister bowed down to examine the corpses.

'Lasgun wounds. And abhorrent signs of mutation.' She frowned at the sight of bird claws and patches of blue feathered skin.

'Quite swift robbers,' I said. 'That's whom your auspex noticed on the riverbank, Angel. Take a pict of the place and burn the corpses before they attract something worse. The scoundrels couldn't have gone too far, Fluffster would notice any shuttle leaving the surface.'

I hurried out trying to catch at least a feeble trace of the robbers' souls. Nothing. Blanks, a guess popped into my head at once. If so, we're screwed. Either a powerful Radical or a crime boss who had hired them would remove the witnesses before Lady Cichlasoma came to the rescue. I typed a quick ciphered message to our ship waiting in orbit. Thanks to Fluffster's Martian lore, we could use the most intricate ciphers to feel safe. Rourke's unlucky death and the following bureaucratic troubles had made me abandon the idea of hiring his vessel for permanent cooperation. We had had to spend half a month on Uebotia during the tourist season until Lady Melitara returned from another business trip. I felt uneasy to distract her but her steadfast devotion to the Emperor made her postpone all other duties.

The answer came quickly. 'No other spacecraft spotted nearby. Will scan the area for stealth vessels.' If really so, there was a chance to intercept the agents and leave the planet before their patrons enter the game. Angel kept on scanning the vicinity. On the very edge of the auspex range he spotted a moving object. The forest was too dense to use vehicles, so the robbers were going by foot. We didn't have time to return to the owl but Angel's jump pack would ease the task.

Despite the protests of my overprotective friends, I climbed up on Angel's shoulder. Fresh wind hit me in the face when we left the shady thickets and plunged out towards the countless stars scattered over the clearing skies. I caught my breath rushing through the cold night air and then falling down from the heights in a few moments when the very feeling of reality was lost.

'In the gully.' Angel landed in thick grass and put me on the ground.

On the way down the slippery slope I tripped over and fell on my side. My left leg got numb up to the knee. A gust of icy cold made me shiver. I swept my arm out but pulled it back the same second. A jet-black rod lay in lush hair moss at my feet, tiny silvery sparks running over the obsidian surface.

'So not blanks,' I said rubbing my leg. 'But little better. Especially when they're rich enough to drop a weapon like that. I'm not surprised the cultists were taken with their pants down.'

'They're heretics that must be stopped,' he answered with one of his favourite clichéd phrases. 'Tell us what to do, and we'll purge the unclean for you in the Emperor's name.'

I sighed. 'You're puzzled indeed if you started preaching again. Trace the presumed route.'

He shrugged his shoulders. 'It ends down there.'

He stayed on the top with the rod, and I hurried down to the empty bottom of the ravine. Nowhere to hide, not even a small hole in the moss carpet. Plain calm of midnight. But for distinctive warp unrest. My flashlight beam caught a dark line crossing the bright green. I raised the flashlight to light up the distant part. An uneven circle of burnt moss in the middle of the gully where the disturbance was the strongest.

'They evaded through a warp gate.' I walked round the circle in a vain hope to find out something more. 'Smart. That's why ghosts scare the locals and unlucky latent psykers end up half a galaxy away just going out to pick wild berries. The moment I wish I had a stronger ability. Let's check up the skills of Lady Melitara's astropaths then. Only real masters of their job can find the wanted criminal with clues as subtle as this. Just keep your head up, brother.' I smiled at him to cheer him up.

He sighed in response. 'Sorry, Volentia. A memory from the past. Something I wish I had forgotten long ago. Let's return to the ship.'

Lady Melitara accepted the news with stoic patience. Initially, she had planned to carry us to the Malleus outpost with the relic and proceed to her business duties. I chose five big gemstones from the Casbah in our emergency stock and left them on Melitara's table despite her protests of politeness. Her astropaths took the moss samples from the warp gate to study the trail while the leader of the choir went through the closest areas of the Empyrean looking for subtle fluctuations. I suggested activating the gate but Melitara dismissed the idea at once.

'My lady, pardon my impudence, but I don't want to even discuss such heretical things.' She slapped on the panel in anger. 'I answered your call because you're known as a pious Puritan. Radicalism is the plague of modern Ordos.'

There were facts of my recent biography she'd better not to find out at all. 'Well, Captain, some ultimate Puritans deem all usage of warp to be heresy.'

She didn't smile back. 'Navigators and astropaths had been blessed by the Emperor Himself. Your circumstances didn't allow you to pass the soul binding, but I hope you won't skip the rite once your superiors permit you to leave for Holy Terra. But, to be honest, I've heard a few unflattering facts about Lord Platydoras. You're not the first psyker among his subordinates to be encouraged to practice psychic disciplines without due education.'

I shook my head. 'I'm a small person and prefer to stay away from big dogs and their business. As long as they give me work and pay good wages.'

'Cynicism doesn't do a lot for people of your honourable office, my lady. The scandal with Plodia was utterly outrageous. Especially how easy they all came to ignore open treason. Must have been heartbreaking for her parents. The cartel shares dropped by half when our rivals started spreading rumours about heretical trade deals.'

The image of starving Plodia locked in the horrible cage in the Chaotic temple made me grit my teeth. 'She's changed greatly, Captain. I found her in captivity on my worst enemy's daemon world when he kidnapped my retinue. But for her, we couldn't return to the Imperium.'

'You have a kind heart,' she said sadly. 'But I wouldn't draw premature conclusions. The coming war shows who is who.'

'We'll see her in action soon. She's been serving with Lady Cichlasoma since the Panther affair, until her penance is over.'

'I haven't met Lady Cichlasoma in person yet, but I heard that her degree of Radicalism is already disturbing. She's openly admitted to negotiate with xenos. And her patrons from high echelons silence those who question her strategies.'

Sailing with Lady Melitara was the very kind of economy that people complain about in cheap family hostels, where the owner treats you like a child from the very beginning. She didn't openly mock the state of my wallet or my lack of imposing facade, but the need to act like a poster girl kind of a Puritan was already getting tiresome.

Using her methods of reconnaissance, we got stuck in orbit for eight days. Finally, the chief astropath proudly presented the results of their sniffing around. Fluctuations similar to warp gate openings had been found in a cluster of neutral uncharted space aside from main passenger routes. Melitara demanded to send the data to our Malleus partners and leave but I had other plans. After a successful cause, I needed more completed by my own to get out of our financial crisis. Prices for space transfer were getting higher before the Black Crusade, and we had ended up with most of our reserves spent for buying a new chainsword and treating Uncle's wounds. I had sent receipt copies to Fungata but we had to wait for at least a month when the financial department sent the compensation. The null rod we'd found was a pricey thing but I had to give it out to the Ordo as the rules demanded.

'Fluffster, you should know where it is,' I sent a message with attached coordinates to the Machine Spirit chamber where my Magos was debugging the navigation software. 'You had an archive of old maps'.

'Funny, this place is still popular millennia after the Great Crusade,' he answered in a few minutes. 'A pirate port mentioned in a few Remembrancer accounts. Magnus the Red stopped there along with Perturabo on their way to Morningstar.'

I caught a glimpse of Lady Melitara's expression. Luckily, the names of two traitor Primarchs weren't familiar to her and caused no further suspicions.

'Captain, you own a rogue trader patent,' I said to her. 'You surely have been to corsair planets in your young years at least.'

She lingered for a second. 'Youthful ignorance I'm quite ashamed of. But I need to emphasize, for the sake of my reputation, that I had never spoken a single word to heretics and traitors, let alone foul xenos.'

'You've got a trading patent by His authority. It's not just suspected but expected from you.'

She pursed his lips. 'I've got a different upbringing. Beware, my lady, while your superiors haven't corrupted you.'

She sat on her navigator throne in sullen silence when the ship left the Imperial space for Oldhaven. Formerly a croneworld of the Aeldari, as Fluffster told me, it had been abandoned after the Fall due to its proximity to the Eye. For two weeks and a half we were sailing through tumultuous tides still plagued by the aftermath of the birth of Slaanesh until the navigator saw the beacon light.

The orbit of Oldhaven was crowded with armadas of ships. Most of them belonged to renegade traders and Aeldari corsairs but we saw a looted junk-frigate of a Greenskin Freeboota as well as a formidable battle barge with skull sigils and hazard stripes favoured by Perturabo's sons. We chose a cheap parking place in high orbit quite far from the main port. Lady Melitara ordered the engine shutdown, and we heard the port dispatcher's drunken voice from the bridge dynamics.

'Ahoy there, on the Perseverant! Buying, selling, hiring sailors?'

Her answer was polite and dry. 'Looking for rare commodities for special customers of the Interpunctella cartel.'

Damn her excessive honesty. But sudden joy in the dispatcher's tone astonished me.

'That's Captain Plodia who sent you, for sure. Please, good lady, tell her many still miss the Morning Glory and her merry crew. She hasn't visited us for three decades, hope she's fine.'

Melitara's face blushed furiously red as a beetroot. 'Thank you for your kind words, sir,' she said through gritted teeth.

'You've arrived just in time, Cap!' The dispatcher ignored her animosity. 'You've probably noticed the proud Galeos Parthenos on your way to the parking space. Warsmith Limax is waiting for a priceless sorcerous staff to be delivered to him. He would enjoy trading with his old buddy's partners, he's already sold tons of wonderful goods to dear Captain Plodia. But hurry up, the bounty hunter is already in the port.'

I winked at Melitara when he mentioned the staff. Thanks to the fickle nature of the warp, we managed to get back in time and come to Oldhaven even before the robbers left the Forest of Ghosts. She looked down at her boots.

When the conversation ended, she reached for a drawer under the panel and took out a flask of amasec, her cheeks still flaming red. She drank a glass with a single gulp, the first time I saw her drinking.

'Outrageous, my lady.' She could barely speak. 'That's what consorting with Chaos leads to. Bad publicity for the whole cartel. I'd started working for the Interpunctella family two centuries before Plodia was born, but the filthiest renegades know me as Plodia's partner. Two decades after she got the rosette. And if it reaches Uebotia...'

I climbed the ladder to her platform and put my finger to my lips. 'Bad publicity means the opposite in places like that. Do you have a spare helmet or any other headwear that can cover my face?'

She stood up with her arms crossed on her chest. 'I still hope I misinterpreted your intentions. I wouldn't go to the traitor barge for the world. That's the same despicable warlord who bought factory slaves for his campaign.'

I took the rosette out of my pocket and held it up in her face. 'Well, Captain, you've got to.'


	3. II

Dozens of shuttles scurried between parked ships and the surface on the big auspex screen. Fluffster zoomed in to focus on the battle barge. Other vessels avoided the Galeos Parthenos so the bounty hunter's shuttle would be easy to see in the empty space around. Knowing the Warsmith's paranoia, I wasn't surprised he preferred musing in his chambers to rowdy fights and boozing in port bars. At least he had a vox channel open for contact as most of Oldhaven's guests.

'That's still improper, my lady.' Melitara didn't even look at me.

I spoke in my most reassuring tone. 'I'm not forcing you to start the talk, Captain. Trust me, my latest adventures brought along at least some experience in delicate matters like that. If you worry about his suspicions, I can tell you Dark Apostle Imudon was an only witness to Plodia's penance. Limax has never worked with him. The latest widespread rumour about Plodia was her intrigue with the Pirate King.'

Melitara reached for another glass. I took a seat at the panel and checked the voice modifier. There was an option of secure trade requests in the list of channels presented on the port's network page. 'Outcoming request sent to the Galeos Parthenos. Stay on line till the answer.' Short beeps, then the familiar heavy breath came from the speakers. Limax didn't trust his advisors enough to negotiate for him.

'Best greetings from Captain Melitara, my lord!' I started cheerfully before Melitara could have interfered. 'Hope you have good memories of your long-term collaboration with the noble heir of the Interpunctella dynasty.'

He was panting into the mic for a few seconds. 'So-so,' he muttered at last. 'What do you want now?'

'You're famous for a glorious range of precious commodities especially valued by top-level customers all over the sector, Lord Limax. Further cooperation will bring us mutual benefit.'

'Scrap-metal from the forges of Medrengard, unique weaponry and automata crafted on Medrengard and Gallium, all kinds of spare parts for machines both human and xenos, a stock of necrodermis for a special price,' he kept on mumbling the list of goods like a pupil reciting a rhyme in class, but then stopped abruptly, catching his breath.

'Wonderful, totally wonderful! I hope we can discuss the terms in a friendly way aboard your barge.'

'You'll have to wait until I finish with another deal,' he answered after a pause. 'No tech-priests, special weapons or modified guards allowed. Sending the access code.'

He turned off his mic before I could say goodbye. Relatively harmless compared to other Chaos Lords I'd encountered, he'd be pretty fine to talk with if only Melitara didn't scare him into shooting around. His nervous attitude wouldn't let me bring Angel or Fluffster along but Uncle would do as well without unpredictable odds.

I put on a long cloak taken from Melitara's wardrobe and wrapped my scarf around my head and face like warrior-nomads of Tallarn do, all but the eyes hidden from sight. Fluffster had provided me with a stealth device that would disrupt the work of security sensors but the hardest part would be avoiding legionnaires and serfs on the way out. He had checked the record of shuttles that had left the barge for the port, and it looked like most of his crew were spending their time and money in the bars. Guard automata were usually equipped with the same sensors as the board security systems, so my task was to sneak through unpopulated areas of the barge back to our shuttle where Fluffster would be waiting with a stasis container. I asked him to give me the trophy rod but he refused firmly. Not safe for a psyker to wield, he said, and even less safe to flash in front of its previous owner.

When we docked to the Galeos Parthenos, memories of Torquigener sent chills down my spine. All I had seen last time was the cargo hold where Limax kept factory slaves packed like cattle in a compartment of bare metal. The upper decks showed a striking contrast. The barge itself was a relic vessel of a pattern forgotten by now, but, thanks to its owner, it was little more than a flying junkyard. Piles of scrap-metal and battered crates lay on the docking deck without any order, mixed with other rubbish and food waste. Melitara pursed her lips at the stench that filled the place.

'Lassie, you've made a good choice of headwear,' Uncle said to me covering his nose.

'I would be grateful if you refrain from comments right now, sir.' Melitara straightened up, smoothed her grey hair and shook off a drop of water tat fell on her prim tunic from the corroded vault. 'The shipmaster is aware of our arrival but I don't see anyone to meet us.'

We waited at the airlock for a few minutes but not a single sailor ever appeared on the deck. A cargo servitor walked past us on long spider legs to dump another bundle of deformed metal parts in a shaded back corner. Lamps were dim and flickering, cracked control screens barely reacted to the touch. I walked along the wall, passed between a few hills of junk and finally saw a row of beat-up transfer cars. A good excuse to return to the deck afterwards.

At the fourth attempt I managed to trace the route to Limax's chambers on the inset navigator and start the decrepit engine. The closer we got to the central part, the paler was Melitara's face. She sat next to me, straight and motionless as a statue, looking at her clasped hands. When we rode past a legionnaire in horned armour mottled with Chaos emblems, she closed her eyes and kept them shut until I stopped the car before the half-open metal doors guarded by two automata. I typed the code sent by Limax on the security screen by the doors, and they lowered their boltguns to let us in.

Inside the reception chamber two voices were speaking. I'd better say one and a half, as Limax answered mostly in brief mumbling interjections or violent puffing. The other voice, dramatic and loud, belonged to a woman. We entered the poorly lit waiting room. Through the doorway I saw the gawky Warsmith with his arms folded on his chest. His interlocutor, a fidgety girl in an assassin bodysuit, looked waifish against his hulking shape.

'I wish you luck in your studies of sorcery, my dear lord,' she crooned stepping closer towards Limax. He reeled backwards instinctively with a muffled gasp. 'And I should thank your for the vortex grenade. Otherwise, the bacons could have shot me.'

'Not me,' he huffed out.

'You're still a formidable warrior even without lightnings from your eyes.' She ran her fingers through her fuchsia-pink hair and winked at Limax. 'How will you reward the lady for a sweet little secret?'

Limax cleared his throat. 'I've paid you enough.'

'As if money is all a lady needs.' She touched his pauldron with a flirty giggle. Limax threw off her hand and darted back. She shrugged her shoulders, a sour grimace on her face. 'My lord, that's improper to be so rude while I know something that will influence on the coming campaign.'

'Tell then.'

'I hoped you showed more interest.'

'An extra set of weaponry,' Limax wheezed out. 'Devices of your choice.'

'Fine.' She puckered her neon purple lips. 'You've got rivals on Myristica. They found out where the thing is. Hurry up lest they sell it away even before your fleet reaches the system.'

'All? Go get the reward.' Limax made a few ungraceful steps towards the trashed back wall and turned aside from the visitor.

The bounty hunter headed to the exit. As she passed by, she leaned over a row of boxes and crates and pulled out a long cylinder case with a blue rune glowing on the lid. It kept on slipping down as she tried to place it against the wall so she just left it behind the door. I felt warp noise subdued by the case when I peeped into the chamber before Melitara could enter.

Limax's reception room was something in between a workshop and the same scrapyard as the other compartments of the barge. Working tools lay piled up on workbenches, leaning towers of hardware boxes were about to come down on the Warsmith and his guests. The only reminder that the room used to be a strategium was a dusty holographic table for battle simulations in the corner.

'Rogue trader Melitara, Captain of the Perseverant, in the service of the Interpunctella trade cartel of Uebotia!' I announced.

Limax jerked up his head. I met the gaze of his grey eye-lenses. 'Enough femoids for today,' he muttered. To my relief, he didn't recognize me.

'Sir, let us get down to business with due attention to all formalities.' Melitara's boots drummed on the metal floor as she pushed me aside and walked into the chamber with her head held high.

Limax clasped his gauntlets panting through the helmet rebreather. 'Captain, your bodyguards. They have to go away.'

'Sir, I beg you. Giants like you tear up a whole squad of soldiers with their bare hands.'

'The rule of my barge,' he answered stepping back to the table.

I nodded and made a sign to Uncle so he hid behind the door. Melitara gave Limax a ceremonious smile, and he responded with a clumsy bow of his helmet.

'Lady Plodia speaks very highly of you,' Melitara continued with factitious courtesy. 'It has been thirty years since you started the cooperation, if I am not mistaken.'

'Like that,' Limax did his best to imitate small talk.'I remember that day. She arrived to buy hardware from Medrengard. I made a vid-call to the Morning Glory.' He paused to recuperate, then went on as Melitara didn't show much enthusiasm to comment on the story. 'She answered from her private room. And was quite glad to see me. She had candy wrappers stuck to her dress. Her cheeks were red like a tomato. Something was buzzing on her night table and made her speech hard to hear.'

Melitara's face turned redder than Plodia's on that day. She clenched her jaws and straightened her collar. 'Sir, I will give your regards to Lady Plodia,' she finally squeezed an answer out of her throat. 'I think we should have a look at the list of goods.'

Limax, glad to stop the small talk, rushed to the large wall screen and started tapping on the scratched surface. It lit up slowly, and a large pict of a naked woman appeared on the screen. Limax muttered something and poked the menu section in the bottom left corner. Another window popped up over the pict. We saw a Drukhari wych undo the clasps of her spiky corset. Limax threw himself in front of the screen trying to cover the vid-log. 'No, not that, don't watch, just a minute!' he gabbled into his helmet speakers punching the battered screen. It went dark for a few seconds, then a presentation with blurred picts of his goods finally opened. Melitara stood wordless, her eyes open wide, her lips pursed together.

'It's time.' I closed the door carefully. 'The granny and the nerd are too busy to pay us attention.'

'Hard to believe this one is His Angel of the Great Crusade,' Uncle whispered shaking his head.

I put my finger to my mouth and crouched down over the case. I'd already seen a few rune-locks visible to psykers only, but some were trickier and needed specific sigils and rituals to open. The glowing sign was warm to the touch. I closed my eyes, tried to get in touch with the lock. It opened with a click, and an outburst of psychic power threw me to the floor.

Shifting reflections of emerald green and blue danced on the walls and ceiling. Frozen up in eerie trance, I reached for the case. A flash of warp-flame, and the staff was already in my hand, its weight and size perfectly fitting its new holder. A turquoise bird head on the top was breathing colourful spectral fire, lightnings cracked all over the crystal pole. Cackling voices were muttering words of mockery inside my head but I stood still unable to drop the cursed weapon.

Words of prayer broke through the daemonic giggles. Uncle stared at me, deadly pale, his hands folded in the sacred sign. I took a deep breath and turned on the stealth device. The case was closed again, and I stepped over it reading litanies in feverish haste, concentrated on the hard struggle with the staff. Dull pain in the midriff was growing stronger when I ran between the automata and jumped into the car.

Uncle was driving now while I sat in the back seat, almost paralyzed by the sorcery too powerful to wield. The staff lay down at my feet, its lights hard to notice for a non-psyker. A deal of luck, and soon we'll get rid of this daemon stick. A loud tinkle came from my pouch. I stirred, too weak to even take out my dataslate. It tinkled again. I rubbed my eyes and put my hand inside. An incoming message. Fluffster. I covered it with the other hand and tapped on the utility menu to decipher it. 'Latest news. Lady C. tracked down the dusty soldiers. Myristica. Leaving today. Hurry up.'

The very planet Limax had a mysterious rival on. I started typing in the answer field. My fingers trembled, and the dataslate slipped out to my knees. Finally, I pressed the 'send' button and sat back recuperating. Blue sparks were flickering before my eyes, the contours of the passages started shifting and distorting.

Uncle was rocking left and right on the driver seat as if he was drunk as a skunk. The engine itself didn't obey his commands, the car's crazed Machine Spirit made it jump and turn at random. We narrowly escaped a crash at the row of support columns that separated Limax's quarters from the decks. Cultist serfs turned their heads staring at the wonders of drunken driving but quickly returned to their usual business as we passed by.

When we got close to the descent to the docking deck, a group of serfs stopped and waved their hands at us. I felt another psyker's aura touch mine. I shoved Uncle in the back so he speeded up. The serfs went on running after us on their augmented metal legs. One drew a laspistol, and the beam made a smoking hole in the back of the seat next to me. Their leader tapped on the wall screen.

I cussed and reached for the staff. Its might flooded my mind open to channel the tremendous energy. A desperate cry broke out of my lungs, violent daemonic chirping subdued all other sounds. I stood up, shaking at the warp power running through my body and soul.

'Get away! You haven't seen us!' I ordered with the Will and swung my staff. The bird head uttered a shrill cry.

The psyker fell down to his knees, blood running from his nose and eyes. His companions threw their weapons to the floor and scattered. I dropped the staff and flopped back to my seat. Uncle staggered for a second. It was enough to slam into another information column. The back wall of the car broke off. I fell out and rolled down a wide ramp to the engine compartment.

'Lassie, I'm running to you!' Uncle's voice shouted from the vox bead.

'Don't you dare!' I cried back tumbling down past metal crates and repair servitors. 'Back to the shuttle, quicker, than take out the Cap!'

'We won't leave Oldhaven until you return!'

Steaming hot air enveloped me. The compartment reeked of oil and smoke but they were none as repulsive as the psychic stench. It was almost dark save the reddish glow of daemonic furnaces and warp lamps. I slid to the very bottom and slipped through an open hatch. My cloak got caught in another weird construction, and I found myself hanging over a vast chamber packed with corroded machinery animated with malignant essence of the tainted Immaterium. Daemon automata of gruesomely deformed shapes scurried between the machines. Boundless fury of the Neverborn trapped within their metal frames made me shiver. Even the stealth device was of little help where they yearned for living souls in their eternal hunger.

The thin fabric of the cloak started tearing up. With a desperate dash, I gripped the bundle of cables hanging from the vault. Holding on to the cable with one hand, I undid the clasp and got out of the cloak, then climbed down struggling with vertigo. I shouldn't have listened to Fluffster's warnings. Better to have clashed with the bounty hunter than to become daemon fodder away from my crew.

A feeble call reached my mind. Not a daemon. A human being. 'Girl.'

'Who are you?' I sent back as my feet touched the floor.

'Come closer to the reactor'.

'Who are you?' I repeated, more surprised than scared.

'I was a Librarian in my Chapter. Limax captured me. I've spent seven years here in the direst of torments.'

'The daemon guards will rip me and devour my soul.'

'Don't fear,' the psychic voice answered. 'I managed to break one of the ward sigils. That's why I'm able to speak to you. I'll shield you from their evil.'

Step by step, I walked up to the fiery heart of the Galeos Parthenos. Fierce eyes of the automata glimpsed at me but the mechanical servants didn't dare to touch me. The warpflame reactor pit was covered with an elaborate construction of metal with psychoactive crystal shards glowing in a strange pattern over the intertwined cables and chains.

An aura of suffering struck me when I looked upon the whimsical machinery. A giant was bound to the twisted metal net with rune-engraved shackles. Cables were connected to crude plugs carved into his body black with soot, a plain crystal mask his his face from sight. His marine bodyglove had turned to oil-soaked rags stuck to his skin. His chest heaved when he gasped for air as warp-fire was licking his limbs and sides.

'Seven years of unimaginable agony. Help me, good girl.'


	4. III

His body went limp when the reactor fire retreated. Blood was pounding in my temples at the echo of pain. I had to put an end to this.

There was something uncanny in his tone I hadn't encountered yet in Space Marines of the present generation. But I was aware there were Chapters aplenty all over the galaxy, some of them peculiar indeed. I reached out with my psyker-sight to have a glimpse of his mind but he spoke to me again.

'Take care, that attracts the daemons' attention you won't like.'

'Are you really one of the Emperor's warriors?' I decided to ask him the problematic question openly.

'Of course, I fought for the Emperor, and fought with valour.'

Relieved, I touched the sorcerous shackles. My own power wasn't enough to unlock them with will alone, but the solution was closer than I thought. A wand of shimmering seer crystal was fixed on the edge of the net, visible to the captive but out of his reach. I pulled it out of the holder and touched the sigil over the captive's right wrist.

He freed his arm with astonishing prowess and snatched the wand out of my hands. In a few seconds he was already standing on the floor. Fresh blood streamed from the sockets when he ripped the cables out without a sound of pain. His mask cracked in half at the touch of the key, and his unbound psychic might struck me like an electric shock. I caught a vague scrap of the man's memories. Nothing relevant to our business. Gulls crying over a bank of sand dunes. Salty smell of the sea.

He gave me a nudge and dumped the wand to the reactor. Halves of his split mask fell to the floor. He brushed his grimy mane of tangled hair from his forehead and gave me a smile. A smug, almost relaxed smile I'd have expected from Aphedron, not Angel or even Raaf.

'This boring wanker will miss me, while I won't miss this nice place at all. If you already rescued me from my prison, girl, let's do a few more useful things together, and I'll be ready to return your favour,' he said heading to the hatch.

'You speak in quite a free manner, sir. I would bet you're one of the Space Wolves but they would hardly ever ask for help.' I tried to find at least one distinctive feature in his outlook but soot covered all possible tattoos or other marks.

He laughed so as if I'd just told him a very funny joke. 'Good that you try learning more about people. That's essential to your Inquisitor office of great responsibility.'

'Why do you know?' Before embarking, I had ensured that my outlook was totally mundane.

'The way you ask questions. And your thoughts you hadn't bothered to hide from me.'

I scratched my head. 'Well, because you turned out to be an ally. I still wish I knew more about your background.'

'Knowing isn't always a blessing. An old friend of mine has learned it in a hard way. Don't follow his example and wait a bit till we're out of this sorrowful scrapyard.' He climbed up to the manhole and pulled me up.

He navigated the passages of the barge better than me, so I just followed him through the machine compartment until he stopped before a ventilation grate.

'Sir, you're welcome aboard the rogue trader vessel I'm currently travelling on,' I said. His powers must be used for my business. 'As you're back to your duties, I need your assistance in a mission vital to the security of this sector. I've just had the Staff of Everchange taken away from Limax who planned to use it against the Imperium on Myristica.'

He raised his eyebrows. 'A famous weapon. You were truly close to turning into a Chaos Spawn. Was it your faith that saved you, or...'

I ignored the weird hint. 'More heretical things have been discovered on Myristica by Ordo Malleus. A squad of Rubric Marines sold a few years ago by a mysterious merchant.'

'Wow, everything at once. I just cannot stay away from this quest of real importance.'

I smiled. 'Perfect, thank you.'

He winked at me and pointed at the shuttle bay. His mighty aura veiled us from sight so we just passed through a serf crowd unnoticed. On looking back, I saw that cameras and screens were turned off in the whole area we crossed. With swift, accustomed gestures he unlocked a shuttle and invited me in with a bow of half-mocking courtesy.

'We won't draw attention to your vessel right now.' He leaned over the panel and chose an already established route to the port. 'Let's visit some buddies down there.'

When the shuttle landed, Oldhaven's sun had just set. I walked out to a quiet lakeshore in the shadow of an orange grove. Piles of waste and extinguished campfires added in a note of desolation to the evening calm. The librarian took a deep breath looking at the ripples on the lake, then ran down to the water. He jumped in with a loud kerplunk, and a black stain spread over the weekend flotsam of wine bottles and plastic packages.

His head showed above the surface, dirty water running down his fiery red mane. An unsettling colour, a stray thought popped into my mind. He scrubbed his shoulder, and I saw a large scarlet tattoo on his tawny skin. First I thought it was an eagle but when he turned towards the light, I understood it was a phoenix with raised angular wings. There was a 'Know your ally' app on my slate that was supposed to have a database of emblems from all chapters, guard regiments and other orders and unions. I came closer and caught the tattoo in the frame of the app scanner. 'Image not recognized. Refresh the database at the nearest citadel of your Ordo.'

I rubbed my forehead and put the dataslate back to the pouch. He waved at me splashing in the water as if he was on a beach holiday.

'Girl, you saw what remained of my suit. Be a friend and lend me your scarf until we buy new clothes in the port.'

He talked to me with an ease of an old acquaintance. No hostility, even distance, though he knew my occupation. I wasn't sure whether marines ever cozied up to anyone but nothing in his behaviour sounded definitely Chaotic.

'Surprising that you haven't said a single catchphrase about things like my shield is contempt, purge the unclean and other bullshit yet,' I said unwrapping the scarf.

He burst out laughing. 'Variety, only variety is the spice of life. Those who repeat the same bullshit daily have their heads replaced with chunks of wood and are sent to build walls or lay siege to the already built.' He caught the end of the scarf and squeezed the fabric with a content look. Very content for someone who'd just escaped from a place of grievous torture. 'Hand-knitting. Maybe that's a more practical talent of yours than running after heretics and witches.'

'That's how I usually spend days and weeks of warp travels. Otherwise, my brain would have exploded long ago.'

'Wait for a few minutes there in the bushes while I'm dressing up.'

Taught to avoid being naked in front of others, so probably raised on a civilised world. When I hid behind an orange tree, I felt a powerful surge in the warp. The librarian walked up to me in a loincloth made out of my scarf, bloodied plugs on his sided vanished without even scars. He crossed his arms looking at the port lights in the distance.

'Let's see what curious we can find in this jolly place.'

The port met us with a mayhem of neon lights and rowdy music. Drunkards were hobbling from bar to bar holding to lampposts, streetwalkers in gaudy threads grabbed them by the sleeves. A teen pickpocket put her hand into the belt pouch of an elderly captain flirting with a candy seller, but she took off running when another rogue trader slapped the captain on the shoulder.

The librarian stopped by the closest tailor's shop. 'It would be pathetic to join the fun in such an ascetic garb. But so nice to have a helpful friend around. I'll return the sum once I'm back to my chapter.'

I took out my dataslate and opened the payment app with a sigh. 'For the Emperor's cause. Just don't leave me penniless.'

Smiling as a con man at a luxurious reception, the librarian slid through the constant chaotic motion of the crowd, clad in a new silken robe of blue, red and gold. These colours looked strangely familiar with his flaming mane but I still couldn't recall where I'd seen that. I had but to follow him, the wet, wrinkled scarf wrapped around my neck again. He stopped at a few trading stalls to taste their goods and make cheerful small talk. The port buzz was as natural for him as for a savvy sailor. He leaned over a honeycake stall so the blushing baker whispered something into his ear, then kissed her on the cheek.

'Useful to have buddies and make new ones.' He handed me the smaller half of the sample honeycake. 'Just two hours later everyone knows I've run off from the Virgin Galleon. Limax suspects his today's guests but he's received quite many, so it'll take time to find us. His few psykers are shitty, and he lost the staff.'

'You're priceless for my job, man. Maybe I'll persuade you to have a break and choose the Pilgrimage like my Blood Angel bro. Seems like I've guessed who you are. The Imperial Fists recruit from Necromunda. Your gang tattoo absent from the database. Though you haven't got spoiled by the indoctrination drill yet somehow. That's why you mentioned walls and stupidity. But crying for help... Still not their style.'

He giggled at my investigation attempts. 'Have to admit, it's often practical to exploit the best intentions of people to get out of trouble.'

'Hope you're human at least. But I doubt shapeshifting xenos do it with such love for details.' I slowed down to catch the local network and browse the map. 'Let's wait a bit in a chill place till the owl picks us up. I'll warn my crew.'

'A surprise would be better. So it won't leak out through holes in the network security. By the way, there's a place where we'll be welcome.'

Away from the main avenue, deep in poorly lit sidestreets we found a plain basement door with a peeled ibis head painted on the wooden sign. A flickering orb of spectral fire was floating at the upper arch instead of a lantern. The door opened by itself as we walked down the cracked stairs. A feeble odour of warp wafted out of the dark corridor.

'Better not.' I pulled him by the sleeve. 'With all my love for fishy places, today's a wrong day for adventures like that.'

'Adventures rid us of boredom,' he objected. 'And, for sure, Limax won't find us here. I thought you're a brave girl.'

The corridor led to a large hall lit by a dozen warpflame spheres. An exotic inn, not counting the nauseating optical patterns on the walls and an obvious aura of sorcery. A gaunt man in a flashy coat of many colours hurried towards the entrance at the sight of the peculiar customer. He bowed down to kiss the librarian's hand and ran back calling other personnel.

The librarian chose a table in the corner with a long soft couch instead of chairs. He sprawled on embroidered pillows staring at the constantly twisting lines and circles of the wallpapers. Choosing an obvious cultist lair to have a snack was extravagant even for a Radical like my mentor. Unheard of for a loyal marine. I needed to find an excuse to get back but my dataslate was in his hands.

'The room looks like I'm already drunk.' I looked down at the table to cope with growing sickness.

'So don't stay sober for too long.' He clapped his hands, and the man bowed down again. 'Bring us a whole trout baked in spices and lemons, fresh peaches and grapes and a big jar of your best wine. My friend is generous today.'

'We are all delighted to serve you, high lord.' The man vanished through a side door. Two tall girls appeared in his place and knelt at my companion's side of the couch. I bit my lip. The hems of their dresses slipped up revealing bird feet.

Muttering eerie chirping phrases, they started brushing and braiding his tangled hair. When the hairdo was almost ready, one of the mutants dropped the ribbon with a metal bead and fainted. My companion pulled a grimace of fake other got up to her feet but made a single step before collapsing to the carpet. Meanwhile, even the slightest traces of the con librarian's wounds and fatigue had vanished. Fresh as a youth, he lounged on the pillows sniffing the food smells from the kitchen.

A few more cultists carried away the unconscious servants and put a big plate of grapes and peaches on the table. My companion leaned forward to taste the fruit. A thin braid slipped to one side of his face over his left eye, and I choked on a grape berry at the striking guess.

'Can I ask you for a little favour in exchange for this tasty meal?' I gave him a nudge. 'Please give me an honest answer to a single question.'

'Always ready.'

'How many eyes does your gene-sire have?'

He scratched his head. 'A positive integer.'

'Less than two?'

'That's already the second question.' He paused to pick up a large peach. 'But I'm proud I still remember the smart words they tried to teach me. Sadly, I'm only vaguely aware what they really mean.'

I rubbed my temples. 'I've been the greatest fool ever.'

'There's nothing good in being a smarty pants.' He patted me on the back. 'Smarties are the first to break down when their self-admiring logics stop working. I was one of the biggest fools among the Thousand Sons for so long while my childhood friend was smart as no one else. But I manage to struggle on without book knowledge. As for my friend, his greatest invention has already caused a lot of trouble. And made him wanted literally everywhere. If you ever meet him, take pity of the poor chap and don't hurt him like many do.'

'I should have guessed once I saw this fiery colour.' I tugged at a stray ginger braid that fell on my shoulder.

'I haven't even told you a single word of lie. If it's any consolation, I wouldn't have let you go anyway. I need my staff back.'

A weirdly shaped porcelain jar and a steaming trout in a pile of fresh greenery appeared next to the fruit. The sorcerer chewed on the fish with an expression of bliss. 'Have some, girl. Tastes like childhood.'

His manner of eating the main course reminded me of the peculiar table etiquette of Lord Corydoras. Keen on using a special fish fork and knife in the exact Lunar manner. The first generation when the influence of Terra was the strongest. Much more dangerous than gawky Limax.

He gulped a whole glass of wine. 'Why aren't you drinking? None of the food and drinks have any warp additions.'

'I'm on duty, don't forget,' I grunted.

'Listen to my advice and stop being a workaholic. Our captain had such fiery motivation for his job that he suffered from severe burnout.'

When he finished the meal, the innkeeper looked out of the kitchen. The sorcerer smiled and nodded. 'Show me to the inner hall.' He put his hand on my shoulder as he got up. 'I'm back in five minutes, girl. Have fun.'

The dataslate remained on the couch. Warp lamps had faded so the hall was almost dark. The whole place plunged into a sinister still. Warp unrest was growing in the background, annoying like a mosquito buzzing in the bedroom at night. I reached for the dataslate. Nothing happened. 'Out of the coverage area.' Maybe far away in the depths of the Immaterium. I made a step towards the exit. The sound of steps drowned in the thick carpet. I closed my eyes and ran to the door.

Only when it slammed shut behind my back, I breathed out and looked around. The creepy sidestreets were lost to sight. I was back to the crowded avenue. The sorcerer didn't seem to pursue me. Hopefully, a ritual that had gone awry. Sounds too optimistic. What I knew for sure - there was no way back to the Perseverant. I had two gemstones under the coat lining, must be enough to buy a flight without flashing the rosette.

On the run I reached for my pouch where I'd stuffed my dataslate in the cultist inn. Empty. The bottom and sides were whole, my hand had been on the clasp until now. The hide-and-seek game had started. At a pancake stall I noticed three munching sailors with Aquila signs on their uniforms.

'Buddy, can I have your slate for a second? Gotta call up my captain.' I tapped one on the back.

'Yeah, you wish.' He showed me his middle finger. 'Lots of you scoundrels loitering around. Bugger off, or you'll get it!'

I stuck the rosette in his face. Instead of a thousand words. He froze up gaping. His buddies reacted quicker. The oldest sailor dropped his package on the stall and handed me his own slate.

'Please, m'lady, please. He never meant to be rude to an Agent of the Throne. Just so. Take it. Take everything you wish.'

'I said for a second.' The dataslate connected to the network of the Perseverant. I started typing, my psychic senses concentrated on the closest vicinity. 'Fluffster, set off right now. No further explanations. Tell Lady C. we've got another curious buddy. Meet you on M.' 'Message delivery successful.' I returned to the menu to quit the network.

My dramatic revelation had turned the relaxed avenue into a loonhouse. Dozens of mouths whispered, shouted, spat out a single word. 'Inquisition!' A rogue trader with an Aeldari weapon leapt up to his feet but overturned the cafe table, and plates and cups rained on two mercenaries running under the verandah. First shots echoed in the sidestreets.

I left the dataslate on the pancake stall and plunged into the crowd. Another panicker in heavy carapace armour staggered and slammed me into the wall. I pushed him away and sent out a menacing psychic cry. Better to risk once than to get crushed by petty trespassers who were already shouting about an Exterminatus fleet over the world.

At once a mocking chuckle sounded inside my mind. A flash of familiar red and blue flickered at the edge of my sight, and I nearly tripped on an empty bottle. When I turned my head, there was a plain brick wall. I ran on, towards the Hall of Captains in the port terminals. Any ship, any direction would do. Any Navigator skilled enough to avoid the sorcerer's gaze.

A louder chuckle. 'Do you wanna play a game?' The sorcerer waved his hand at me from the bar across the sidewalk but vanished a second later. I whispered a litany and speeded up. The terminals towered over the festive quarters a hundred steps away, in the end of the avenue. Red and blue on both sides at once. As if any of the loiterers was the damn sorcerer. My eyes fixed on the neon sign over the terminal gate, I sneaked between haywired sailors and soldiers.

Fifty metres left. I broke out of the crowd on the large square before the terminal. A gust of wind hit me in the face, and my breath stopped. I staggered and doubled over in a bout of lung-splitting laughter. Muscles contracted with painful cramps, tears rolled down my cheeks but the laughter didn't stop. Shaking and gasping for air, I collapsed on the pavement.


	5. IV

Seconds of forced laughter were long as an eternity. Then a hand grabbed me by the collar, and the madness ceased. The sorcerer's aura brushed against mine. He put me back on my feet, but I reeled backwards and flopped to the ground again. Recuperating, I reached for my hat and wiped my eyes.

'A smile is always better than those sour pious grimaces of your colleagues.' The sorcerer clapped his hands. 'It helps you to see the other side of life.'

'The brighter side, you'd say?' I growled, my hand already on the bolt pistol.

Bolts popped with warp sparks before they could hit his shiny form. He stood over me grinning, the silken robe thrown over a whimsical suit of armour in bright cerulean and gold. Runes on his pauldrons shimmered with all uncolours of the warp, bird heads on his power pack breathed emerald fire.

'New groove?' I pushed away his gauntlet and got up by myself. 'You'll have to find a new staff as well.'

'Just the opposite.' His tone was friendly even when he squeezed my arm that held the weapon. 'A little ritual helped me to recover the last unsold bits of my possessions, and now we set off to find the rest.'

The pistol slipped out of my numbing hand. I clenched my jaws not to show pain. He giggled as if it all was another funny game. 'Girl, I'll die laughing at the sight of this pathetic face.'

'Why don't you just kill me and go after your junk?' I kicked his polished greave.

'I treat you as a friend but you hope to fool me. You tried to shoot me. But I'm a good-natured man and will do without harming you too much. I bet you love travelling. And fireworks!' He chuckled as he shouted the last phrase, smiling from ear to ear. The very air around him swayed and flickered with colourful lightnings. Loiterers froze up, too shocked to scatter.

A disc of glimmering metal appeared swirling in the middle of the square, incandescent eyes stared at us from the carved surface. It hovered over the pavement, supported by jets of fire gushing from rows of blade-spikes around the edge. The sorcerer jumped up to the back of the mind-blowing mount and gave me his hand.

'A unique chance to ride such a droll thing! Come on, girl, to admire the undescribable unseen, until you lose your mind! Just joking, you don't have one, the best known privilege of your Ordo.'

I picked up the pistol and climbed up on the shivering surface. Everything shifted and blurred before my eyes, my body lost weight and shape amid a giggling abyss with no up and down, where the very idea of reason and structure was anathema.

There was motion. Motion of vertiginous speed. Under impossible angles, in random directions. I gripped the sorcerer's hand as the warp tides nearly swept me from the disc. Spectral towers grew from nothing and dissolved into twisting clouds of mist, blotches of unlight weaved into leering faces and distorted beasts. Warp-sick to the point of fainting, I still couldn't but stare into the depths of the Ocean of Souls.

Then it all died out. Formless haze gave way to a hillside meadow. Pale clouds floated low over a rust-coloured ridge in the distance, lush grass wet with rainwater was steaming in the hot air. The nearest hills looked like a quilt of evenly drawn squares of green, orange and yellow. An agri-world.

A surveillance drone buzzed above, but the sorcerer snapped his fingers, and it continued its way.

'Welcome to Myristica.' He closed his eyes reaching out with his psyker-sight. 'A great journey through space and time let us arrive in advance and snatch the staff once your ship appears in orbit.'

'Are the Rubrics also yours?' I asked unwrapping my scarf.

'My own squad. Sold out like a bunch of tin cans. Thanks to Limax for that.'

'After he captured and bound you?'

'He wouldn't have done that without a nasty cinnamon roll-selling blank from your office.' He frowned. 'Yes, I decided to postpone the payment for my ship he repaired on Medrengard. But working as a free engine machine was a way more expensive kind of service. While I was chained to the reactor, one of my own mortal assistants discovered three out of four warp storages with my property.'

I sighed. 'Another person screwed by Plodia.'

'It's her innate ability that lets people forgive her behaviour, dubious at best. You spoke to Limax in her name, and he didn't kill you even though most would have done it in his place.'

'He's too afraid of the warp and tries to appease at least one available null, Plodia herself told me. That's why I decided to play the card of her cartel.'

'It was risky.' He smiled again. 'But your unconventional decisions are worth respect.'

He sniffed the air and pointed at a hill to the right. 'There's an old shack there. Local mobsters use it as their hideout but they won't mind if we squat in it for a few hours.'

He bent over to pass through the small door of the wooden shack overgrown with wild grapes. Leaves had already started to turn, red flashing here and there in the greenery between ripening bunches. Rays of afternoon sun broke through the veil of clouds. I stepped into a stripe of sunlight falling through the only open window. Broken furniture was covered with a thick layer of dust but chains of footprints lead to the entrance to the basement. The sorcerer tore off a curtain and wiped the faded sofa.

'It might be even cozy here, especially when they light a small lamp in the evening, when night birds are singing under the autumn stars,' he said sprawling on the couch that creaked under his weight.

'Poetic. Almost like the place where I grew in. But there was the sea. Fresh breeze in the morning. Gulls soaring over the sea smooth as a mirror.'

He nodded. 'We have something in common.' He took his helmet off from his belt, and I saw it was shaped like a gull head. A curious coincidence, or not?

'Brother Pterophyllo told me about a sorcerer on a gull-ship who set a trap for them on a cursed xenos planet.'

'He's a good example of how being a pompous asshole brings nothing but problems. He swore to vanquish me while I hadn't laid a finger on him. Do you know his captain found him crawling among what little remained from his squad, licking his own blood?'

'The daemonic guards slew them and cursed him with furious blood-hunger,' I answered.

'Not even he himself can recall whether he tore his Battle-Brothers to pieces in a bout of fury, or he had to fend them off as they had got driven insane by the ancient madness. What I can say for sure, their armour was ripped by his claws but none of them had managed to land a single blow.' His tone was unexpectedly sad.

I shook him by the shoulder. 'Maybe you know what was hiding there, in the shady valley. And in the Casbah.'

'I propose that we choose another topic. For example, your surprising luck in retrieving my staff. It haven't devoured your mind like it often did to non-soulbound psykers. I carried you through the warp to check up a stray guess.' He grabbed me by the shoulder. A glistening metal thing appeared in his other hand, a long golden pin topped with a clear crystal. Before I could cover my neck, he pricked me under the jaw. I felt a jab in the midriff, and the crystal turned opaque black.

'Exactly what I thought.' He stuffed the pin into an inner pocket of his mantle. 'It's still better to turn into a Chaos Spawn.'

'Imudon said about the mark. And his... lieutenant as well.' I shivered as if I'd got from the sunlit shack to the evercold of the undervaults.

'Imudon, the old fake daemonbinder. Someday he'll get what's coming to him. He belongs to a funny kind of people who believe their tiny bubble is an eternal fortress,' he chuckled back. 'Were you surprised that he didn't have visible mutations?'

'Like you.'

'A totally different thing. My friend's fateful invention tied us all together with a strand of sorcery. Earlier, the plague of flesh-change had followed the legion wherever we went, but even our father was unable to solve that. But after the Rubric... Those who had the gift, we're blessed with stability and might. The unlucky ones are down to dust sealed within their armour. None of us can die for real, both curse and blessing.'

He finished the last phrase and turned away to the window. My dataslate slipped out through a hole in his mantle and fell to the floor. Trying to get my head together, I turned it on and connected to the local network with my Inquisition password. Boring news on the start page, as always. 'Latest video. The Spice King is indignant about the growing activity of gangs in the vicinity. A series of outrageous assaults in the area of planned planting.' I scrolled down. 'First trade ships arrive to Myristica with the start of the harvest season.' A long list of privileged clients. 'Lord Illicio, Master of the Spice Guild, is delighted to welcome Captain Melitara, the honoured delegate of our long-term partners, the Interpunctella cartel of Uebotia.' A pict of a plump man in an obviously luxurious vacation outfit, shaking hands with Lady Melitara.

'You blew it.' I showed the pict to the sorcerer.

He just smirked. 'I've always been bad at calculations. But it means we don't have to wait till their arrival.'

'One way or another, you're embarrassing me. I'd hate to read in the following digest about the Hereticus operative who robbed her own owl.'

'We'll make up something for sure. But only when the staff is in my hands.' He clicked on the map app and closed his eyes again. A flickering point appeared on the plain over the hill ridge. The sorcerer traced the route to our current location. 'That's a trailer park for petty traders. Between the main storages and old plantations of cinnamon and nutmeg. I bet your crew decided to pose as simple passengers as the Spice King mistrusts the Inquisition.'

'Man, Angel will rip off your head once he sees you around.'

'Girl, your naivety is so charming.' He showed his teeth in a smug grin. 'You'll do everything by yourself.'

Two shiny trinkets floated out of his mantle pockets, sparks scattering as they hovered above the table. A small seer crystal with a tongue of pink warp-flame inside and a blue glowing disc. The sorcerer caught the crystal and pressed it to my coat lapel. Cheerful cackling jammed into my thoughts as the unholy relic stuck to the fabric.

'Distilled essence of a Pink Horror who doesn't like to be disturbed,' said the sorcerer. 'Once you try to get rid of it or cry out to your buddies, a hearty smile will bloom on your sweet face. What's fine about that, your last minutes will be full of laughter.'

'Laughing like a fool at a funeral.' The disc jumped towards me, and I caught it in mid-air. A Vortex detonator I'd seen in Fluffster's catalogue of relic armaments.

'Wanna be smart? I'd strongly recommend against it. Once I encountered a colleague of yours. He thought himself to be an extraordinary intellectual genius and believed it would be easy to smash a moron like me. I sent him a single ciphered message. He went nuts after reading it.'

'Another warp ruse?'

'You overestimate me.' He threw up his hands, mocking dramatic actors. 'Random nonsense. It took me a few minutes to write it. The man's hubris didn't let him admit there was no way to solve the riddle with his famous logical mind. Admit he's but another fool at the neverending funeral that's going on for ten millennia.'

When I left the shack, sticky afternoon heat enveloped me. I unzipped the coat and waved my hand in front of my face to brush away the choking humid haze. The blessed tropical world where seasonings for Plodia's cinnamon rolls grew under the merciless sun. A highway crossed the meadow, where trucks carried spices and fruit to the port storages behind my back. The owl should have ridden there, when Lady Melitara accepted Illicio's invitation.

I marched along the highway, descending to the roadside grass when another truck drove by. Green squares of fruit trees, golden squares of vineyards, orange and red spots of unfamiliar exotic plants coloured the flat slopes. The sun was already low over the horizon, slowly drowning in blushing heaps of clouds. I quickened my steps to cross the ridge before nightfall. At the bottom of every hill hundreds of harvest machines and cargo servitors were sorting freshly gathered fruit and packing them for dispatch under large glass domes. I recalled the gardens in the old town I had lived in, where branches hung over sidewalks, and any stranger could pick an apple or orange on the way.

A kilometre left till the spice plantations, the road went down to a vast valley. I saw another lone hill towering over the sea of evergreens below, a castle of pink and white marble on the top basked in evening sunlight. A large area to the left was black, soil ploughed and ready for new plantings. I needed to get to the right, to an island of grass among cinnamon shrubs and nutmeg trees, with tall storage towers built in the center. Trailers were tiny spots from the distance, but I saw the brown roof of the owl almost on the edge.

The road split in three. One lazy step after another, I walked past the even row of nutmeg trees, still hoping to get out of this without irreversible damage to my cause and my reputation. At the entrance to the trailer park I lingered for a few seconds. My dataslate was in the sorcerer's hands, the same with my weapons. When I stepped back, cerulean and red flashed among the evergreens. The sorcerer stood leaning on a tree, his arms crossed on his breastplate.

'Mean of you.' He pointed at the owl. 'You gave me a promise.'

'There's no way to do it quietly.'

'Very soon they'll have something to worry about.'

I looked out from behind an empty trailer next to the owl. Uncle was sitting in the owl's shadow with a dataslate and a bottle of beer. He'd just finished cleaning and reassembling his gun that lay on the grass at his feet. Other guests nearby were carrying travel tables and dishes out of their vans to dine under the flaming sunset skies. Almost as majestic as the sunsets over the desert where nobody admired them now. Where I'd done my first attempt to vandalize Fluffster's property, though with better use than today. If I survive, I have to ask him for a key, to clear my conscience for the future.

Dry clicks of gunshots broke into the evening idyllia. An elderly woman who had just gone out of her trailer with a lunch box in her hands, dropped her meal and rushed back screaming. Cries of terror and sounds of awkward gunfire filled the park. A gun turret popped out from the grass twenty steps away but a bolt shell hit it the next second, and it exploded with a dazzling blast. Uncle grabbed his gun and took cover behind the open owl door. Shots came from other directions, and he moved from trailer to trailer with short runs, stopping for another burst of fire.

The sorcerer waved his hand from inside the owl. I showed him my middle finger and stepped in. The others were away, probably with Melitara or Cichlasoma. I knocked on the safe, ran my finger down the lock.

'Come on, come on!' the sorcerer's voice giggled in my head. 'You know what to do with the detonator.'

With a sigh I stuck the disc to the lock. Swirling spirals of azure and purple ran over the surface. Psychic frost covered the metal lid, lightning sparks cracked in the air. I found a bunch of rose grapes and a ham sandwich in the fridge and sat on Fluffster's mattress. The lid vanished with an outburst of warp energy. A volkite gun, an arc rifle, tool boxes. On the lower shelf, hidden behind crates of spare parts and oil cans, there was a long stasis container of opaque black material.

'Good girl.' The sorcerer held out his spectral hand, and lightnings formed a whirlpool of unlight in the middle of the owl. 'Throw the case into the vortex. And don't forget to send me something to munch from your fridge. Grapes like this, a bottle of wine and some salami I saw there.'

'Your contemporary peers gobble up trash like cardboard and don't whine.' I let the case slip into the flickering rift, and it vanished. Half of our food stock followed, and only then the sorcerer was content.

'I'd advise you to leave the place before your friends find this mess,' he said. 'Psykers can find a job everywhere, especially non-soulbound like you, so...'

Before he could finish the phrase, a gust of icy wind rushed through the owl. The sorcerer's psychic projection swayed and dissolved. Shots and cries died out. I grabbed the arc rifle from the forced locker but everything went dark before my eyes when a null field of crushing power struck my mind. The rifle hit the floor. I fell to my knees pressing both hands to my mouth to keep the snacks within. Blood trickled from my nose, ran down my wrists and forearms.

Armoured boots thumped on the owl floor. The null-warrior who stood over me wore the Vratine armour of the Silent Sisterhood but her suit was jet black, and instead of the signature topknot she had her grey hair knotted in a neat bun. Golden sigils of the Inquisition shone on her gorget and her pauldrons in the dim lamplight. When I tried to get up, she put the obsidian tip of her spear to my heart. Once it touched the carapace right over the mark, I shuddered at the proximity of a power even stronger than human blanks, a power that was anathema and bane to witches and daemons.

'No doubt you've had fun, dear,' she said dryly. 'After dinner comes the reckoning.'

I wiped my mouth and cleared my throat, struggling with furious headache in the pariah's presence. 'Nice to meet you, Lady Cichlasoma. This is awkward, but I can explain everything.'

Cichlasoma gave me a wry smile when she noticed the crystal on my lapel. With a null's ease, she grabbed the daemonic trinket and crushed it under her boot. 'Every single scoundrel can explain what he's done. Crinitus is too fond of playing with fire. Don't move, Miss Volentia. Soon my Grey Knights will find your instigator.'


	6. V

Two large shadows fell over Lady Cichlasoma. She didn't bat an eyelid when Fluffster and Angel appeared on either side of her. Fluffster put his paw on her shoulder.

'Enough, my lady. She learned her lesson.'

'Lord Crinitus, not even my grandsire approves of this experiment by now.' She lowered her spear with a grimace of vexation.

'She led us out of the dark shrine without falling to its temptations.'

'You were allowed to leave, for a reason yet to find out. Miss,' she addressed me, 'how were you going to explain the latest accident?'

My lips barely moved as if frozen by the null aura. 'The sorcerer told me he was a captive librarian. He assured me he'd fought for the Emperor before. His tattoo was absent from the app database. And his actions before he went to a cultist hideout...'

'Enough.' She stepped back to let Fluffster pick up his rifle. 'I will have to report about your transgression to your Conclave. No annual bonus for this year. Lord Crinitus will have to supervise your behaviour in your next missions. Next time you fail you'll have to face disciplinary trial.'

'My lady, your contacts with the Harlequins are also quite scandalous in the eyes of strict Puritans,' said Fluffster.

'We're all grown-up enough to understand it's not effective to deny Radicalism but not at the expense of such epic fails. I'll send Ystlum and his squad to intercept the sorcerer. Up to you to warn the locals.'

She turned to the door and left the owl without goodbye. I grabbed Angel's gauntlet to get up.

'Thank you for rescuing me, brother.'

His face was all reproach. 'No need to thank me.'

'They who make no mistakes, do nothing. If you haven't intervened, this mistake could have been my last.'

'It's all fine.' He shook his head and looked down at his feet.

Fluffster only chuckled observing the ravaged locker. 'That's already become a good tradition.'

Sister squeezed between Fluffster and Angel. With tear-filled eyes, she handed me a package of wet wipes. 'You were such a devoted follower of the Emperor before. First you started doubting His mercy and even existence under the influence of your new friend. Then, you were tempted to commit a heretical deed by a traitor. A traitor despicable and pathetic in the face of the Emperor. You were offered blessed martyrdom but lack of faith made you choose mortal existence.'

'I must stay alive so you all have job and home. Yes, I messed up like shit. But every honest person we meet can turn out to be a traitor. I asked him protocol questions and followed the established rules of identification.' I threw a crumpled wipe to the garbage bin but missed. 'Do as you wish, and I need to get back to work.'

Uncle met me at the owl door and opened his mouth to say another worried tirade but I stopped him. 'Uncle, hope at least you can be wise enough not to cry over spilled milk. Good advice, yes. Effective help. But not whining or clucking.'

'We were all hurt by your credulity used by the traitor,' Sister sobbed from behind. 'Angel is so sorry and sad as the sorcerer who killed his men has come for us.'

'Fine, Sister, we'll punish the traitor.' I nodded. It was hard to avoid asking Angel a few delicate questions about the fateful battle. Back in the sands of the Casbah, he hadn't shared that even if he knew something about the monstrous entity within.

'You take too many risky decisions that can drag us to certain doom,' Angel grunted. 'You have to consult us and abstain from things we deem heretical.'

'Now, I'm going to find out more about the attack on the park. The gangs who threaten the Spice King must have clues to the enigmatic buyer of Chaotic relics.'

Drying bloodstains on the grass trailed to the dark of nutmeg trees. The sudden arrival of Lady Cichlasoma and the rest of my crew had scared the raiders but one of them was gravely wounded by Uncle's gunfire. I browsed the latest criminal news. Surprisingly, the gangs operated all across the farming area, blackmarket devices allowing them to be a step forward the official security. Illicio complained in his interviews that they threatened his new initiatives to explore the swamps they had used for their smuggling dens.

The suspicious moment was the unusually small amount of damage at such frequency. They didn't plunder storages or destroy any infrastructure. Just constant unrest, carefully maintained for their own purposes. Mobsters seldom used vehicles, and after every attack they scattered to return to their well-hidden dugouts. Even shacks like the one on the meadow stood abandoned for most of the time

I looked around searching for Cichlasoma. She had more authority than me and would speak to the tycoon way more effectively. Too late. I frowned but found Melitara in my contact list.

'Glad to hear you're fine, my lady.' Her cold tone didn't promise much. My team couldn't but share the news.

'Captain, you're an honoured guest in the Spice King's mansion. Please, tell him the Inquisition needs to talk to him.'

A long pause. Husky coughing from the earphones. Then a male voice spoke to me. 'My lady, Guildmaster Illicio on the line. I hope I won't take much time.'

'What do you know about the gangs, Guildmaster? The planetary government provides you with excessive funds to solve the problems, but your farmlands are the worst endangered territories nevertheless.'

'My lady, are you going to accuse me of purloining the money? You may look through the latest reports on security budget.'

I shrugged my shoulders. 'They attacked my men less than an hour before. In close proximity to your dwelling. Worse, they are suspected of heretical activities as we got a confirmation of forbidden trade in the local underground.'

'Heretics, my lady. The most blasphemous kind of heretics. They likely resort to the Ruinous Powers to deceive the security systems. I hope you will succeed in purging their lairs before they destroy the new construction site. I'm ready to lend you my own security forces, in case you haven't brought along a large army of your own. The fight will be tough.'

His momentary shift from mistrust to combat readiness didn't bode well. A purely intuitive thing. 'Thank you for your devotion. We will send you a heads-up once we need your men.'

Incoming message. A large archive of documents. I sent them to Fluffster's cogitator and asked him to check his main financial channels. And one thing worth a closer look. The timing of attacks and how they were connected with the whole thing felt like trivial corruption, when merchants deal with crimelords to share the profit from subsidies. But a ready accusation of heresy was something new. Probably the current gang leaders had demanded too much. So he wants to get rid of them with the best for his reputation.

I took Uncle's reserve pistol and swallowed a capsule of stimulators. The wounded bandit couldn't have gone too far. Angel's augmented senses and armour sensors will locate the hideout even after nightfall.

Beyond the circle of park lights everything drowned in hot darkness. The electric fence between the grassland and the nutmeg wood was stained with blood and mud. Angel touched the chain link.

'They've switched off the power. It's safe to climb over.'

Evergreen spice trees grew in even rows, thin beams of the rising moon falling on the path through the lush canopy. Background warp buzz reached my mind, too feeble to find its source. Angel followed the trail that zigzagged back and forth but didn't cease. If there were any other mobsters in the vicinity, they had left this area. But the wounded man decided to stay. We had yet to learn why. And more important, what for.

I opened the map and connected to the tracking record of Angel's armour. A meandering line that got closer, turn by turn, to the former swamps. The black cleared land beyond the nutmeg greenery. There was a place ahead where we could intercept him. A small site camp between the plantation and the clearings, built a fortnight ago. I recalled a line from another local news brief about a party of workers invited by Illicio from the northern continent to build facilities for the future plantings.

When we came up to the camp, the site was crowded and noisy. Two workers stood before the gate over a pool of fresh blood, clutching cheap stubber guns. Once Angel appeared before them in the grove shadows they raised their weapons screaming in horror. I dashed forward to the circle of light. They saw my hands folded in the holy sign. Silence fell over. Angel stood next to me, and the others froze up behind the nettings staring at the scarlet colossus.

'I have come in the Emperor's name!' I shouted. 'He sent His Angel with me to find and punish the criminal!'

'The goon didn't lie about the giant,' said one of the guards. 'He's run here, bleeding and nuts with terror.'

'The swamp bogeys have scared him.' The other pointed at the clearings. 'They're getting back at people for destroying their den.'

The first guard nodded. 'A bad place, everyone says. That's why the big boss didn't hire locals.'

I showed them the rosette. 'Lead me in. I have to see the man.'

We found the wounded bandit curled up in mud between two camp trailers. With wild howls he was throwing lumps of clay at everyone who tried to come close. I made a sign to Angel and Uncle to hide behind a trailer and approached him with Sister. A handful of bloody mud splattered over my carapace but I sent him an order with the Will. The backlash did hurt, to put it mildly. Full might of a latent psyker, unleashed by pain and fear, amplified by something else. I did my best to keep the pokerface so Sister's clucking didn't frighten him into setting us ablaze.

Sister leaned over him with a syringe in her hand. Luckily, he had no cultist symbols on so she did the necessary procedures without any questions. When he closed his eyes as painkillers and tranquilizers started working, I probed his relaxed mind again. A shadow of another psyker's presence. An intricate sorcerous bind that had sealed his thoughts from sight. Even if he wasn't a cultist himself, the gangs were directed by a powerful witch for sure. The background buzz had grown stronger on the border of the clearings.

'What else can you say about the swamps?' I asked the foreman who came running to meet the inquisitor. The cyber-moth in my pocket was recording the conversation.

'What the locals have told us, ma'am. No one of them could have even got close to this place. It's the home of the bogeys. They send nightmares and plagues to fools who bother them. The Spice King's a madman. He promised fortunes to the northerners to work where everyone else had refused to. More than half of our brigade had died of swamp fever until we drained the land. We've never crossed the border after dusk. Even when the Spice King offered us double wages for nighttime work.'

'Do mobsters come here often?'

'Not at all, ma'am. Everywhere around but not here. A sane man from here will never step in the swamplands.'

Quite the opposite of what Illicio claimed in his interviews. I sent the moth logs to Fluffster. The answer surprised me. 'Found something curious. Not a confirmed accusation but a possible clue. There were a few donations to private charity funds right when the Rubrics were sold. Take a look at the emblem of the biggest fund.' A white gull on a blue background.

I addressed the foreman again. 'Did the Guildmaster visit the clearings?'

'Quite often, ma'am. He made fun of our fears. He spent hours walking to and fro with a little dirty notebook. Mumbling to himself.' He took out a cracked dataslate. One of the latest picts was an evening view of the area. The plump Spice King was standing with his back to the pictographer, his nose in a small book wrapped in crude paper. The size and design usual for paper notebooks adored by merchants crazy with privacy. Save one detail. Where there should be lines of text on the page, stains of neon colours formed a sickening pattern. I zoomed in, and veins of blue and gold turned out to be blurred symbols. Too blurred even for the old slate's screen resolution.

Sister pulled me by the sleeve, her face pale, her lips pressed together. 'The man has just died. May the Emperor forgive his sins. Though I stopped the bleeding and stabilized his condition.'

"Have you found out the reason?'

'Fast-acting poison. Most likely, a remotely activated capsule. Someone didn't want us to know the truth about the gangs. The heretics know we are here.' She clutched her Eviscerator, staring into the dark with wide-open eyes.

'The accursed sorcerer is chasing us,' Angel growled. 'Doom from an unlikely source.'

'Working as a team, that's what is important now,' I said. 'We'll settle the personal matters once the case is solved.'

'Everything is fine,' he answered with a brief nod and walked off towards the fence. Sister gave me a sad look and followed him.

Before I could say anything the lights in the camp went out at once. I drew the pistol by reflex trained for years of service. A moment of silence.

Then gunshots ploughed the ground at my feet. Mud splashed over my coat and face. I leapt back and crouched at the trailer wall. The guards retaliated with random fire.

'His goons!' the foreman yelled over the cries and shots. 'Ma'am, he's serious. You shouldn't have come here. You'll have us all killed!'

'You mean the Spice King?'

The foreman cussed. 'A damn open secret!'

'Tell your workers to run to their frigging trailers!' I shouted and pushed him away to the safe square between the vans.

Lasguns beams flashed next to me. I rolled to the other side but another beam drilled a steaming hole over my head. Angel sent bolter round after round into the dark. The inquisitor and her crew killed by the notorious gangs would have been just another line in the criminal news. If I didn't send the clues to Fluffster. The Spice King had planned his security forces to turn against us in this messy fight. I activated the vox.

'Angel, how many are there?'

'Enough,' he grunted back.

'Where do they come from?'

'The plantations. About to round us up.'

The scared workers crammed into the central trailers, as far as possible from the assaulters. We could leave through the gates but the beat-up trailers would be full of holes even before they pass through the gate. But if we broke through the chain link fencing to the clearings, we had a slight chance. I crawled to the closest door. Sister was already inside, treating gunshot wounds and trying to calm down the buzzing, shouting crowd.

I knocked on the wall to get their attention. 'Everyone in?'

'Three full vans! The guards are out!' A few voices answered at once. 'They killed the guards!'

An elderly woman howled clawing at her face. 'Son! My son!'

Sister hugged her by the shoulders. The woman shivered as if in fever, her headscarf slipped down to her shoulders. I took a deep breath and raised my voice.

'We have to leave this place. But we'll return with an army that will crush the heretics. But you'll have to be brave. The only way to safety lies through the former swamps.'

They started protesting in muffled, fearful voices but I squeezed through the crowd and pushed the door to the cabin. Headlamps lit up the black soil outside the fence. A goon in a full carapace suit jumped up to his feet and ran out of the circle of light.

'Uncle, do you copy?' I shouted into the vox. 'You'll drive the second van. Let the foreman take the third. Tell Angel to cover our retreat.'

Before I could start the engine, two bright flares dazzled me. A roar of jets subdued the battle noise. Then the ground under the vans shuddered at a powerful impact. In a minute bolters answered the random fire of the goons.

I turned off the headlamps and sent the moth out through a crack in the side window. First pics arrived to my dataslate soon. Drop pods of the ancient Dreadclaw pattern. Hazard stripes on the blank metal surface. We missed you, Limax. The Iron Warriors stood in a chain firing their bolters until the last shots from the woods died out. Corpses of the goons who'd been stupid enough to stay at the fence lay as a bloody rampart between the camp and the clearings.

The air in the middle of the black field cracked with warp lightnings. A vortex of bluish unlight appeared over the drop pods, a sudden disturbance in the warp resonated with the background buzz. A twisted shape the size of a medium living block stepped out of the portal. It moved forward on two bird legs of brightly coloured metal, the distorted body bore the helmeted skull sigil but the emblems painted around had more to do with the intricate runes on the gull-loving sorcerer's armour than to the crude heraldry of the Fourth. A mighty god-machine captured and corrupted by the traitors long ago.

'Angel, get in!' I commanded into the vox.

'I don't own my life. The enemy has come.' His tone was grim and bleak.

'Get in. Or you'll never take your revenge upon the gull man.'

He stuck his head into the van. The workers folded their hands in the sign of the Aquila, greeting His Angel in awed silence. I sat at the cabin door and wiped my face.

'We have to call Cichlasoma's staunch tin soldiers to get out of here alive.' I said in High Gothic so as not to scare the workers any more.

'Do as you wish.' He turned his back to me.

I sent the emergency signal and leaned on the wall. The Iron Warriors weren't interested in the unlit camp. Another transport descended on the clearing, and even more peculiar and warped machinery was deployed to the field. Giant excavator buckets scooped up the wet soil. The Spice King wasn't going to plant trees here. Spices were just a profitable business to have spare funds to discover what even warlords as mighty as the traitor chieftains strive to obtain. That's who was the rival the bounty hunter had mentioned. Yet to find out what the thing is.

A familiar voice chuckled inside my head. 'Inquisitor, you're grumpy again? The silver fellows roughed me up but I'm still cheerful.'

'The Warsmith wants his power battery back, man,' I grumbled.

'Yeah, he wishes! Look, there's the greatest show unearthed to witness! Aspersum's seer even brought along his precious titan.'

'What are they going to dig out?'

'Another piece of funny tech,' he hummed. 'Something to do with siege, I guess. Well, Inquisitor, you do want to leave this place alive?'

'Strange question.'

'You need to skedaddle, I want revenge. A good excuse for an adventurer and a wannabe-Puritan to team up. We both belong to the same witch-kind even if you try to ignore that.'

I rubbed my forehead. 'You'll screw me.'

'Maybe. Or maybe not.'

'Listen here. If we leave safe and sound, I'll tell you who bought your Rubrics.'


	7. VI

Excavator buckets went up and down, quicker and quicker. Hills of soil were growing on both side of a gaping pit in the exact middle of the clearing. The twisted titan's vulture head opened its azure beak, and a gush of warp-smoke burst out and lit up the whole field. Silvery wisps flickered around the pit edges. Metal glinted on the bottom, and immediately geysers of spectral fire shot up into the air. Headless shapes woven of tainted aether appeared all over the field, hopping and waving their cannon-limbs. Roaring gouts of colourful flame hit the titan's shell.

'They'll be busy with the Flamers now,' said the sorcerer. 'And we have to piss off the pretentious moron.'

I sighed. 'I know the Iron Seer quite well. He sacrificed workers and young psykers to the Stormbringer and burned out my buddy's eyes.'

'He's bound me to my torment. Mawkish scatterbrain whose only success is fooling his grunt of a boss. Trust me and start the attack first. Just distract him for a single moment. Your mark will deceive the titan's spirit.'

My breath stopped. Everything blurred into a formless mess of uncolours. I was falling through the aether haze to nowhere. Titan. I must find the titan. The sorcerer's aura shone like a beacon in the shifting clouds. My fall slowed down, and I concentrated on his soulfire moving across the current with effort.

'Take it easier,' his voice reached my mind. 'The more you struggle, the slower you swim. Just let the current take you there.'

Daemonic cackling mixed in, rose to an ear-splitting crescendo. Surrounded by elusive shapes of Flamers, a spectral giant with a bird's head lashed out with blasts of pure madness. A glimpse of the clash between the Neverborn made me lose my concentration. But for the sorcerer's support, I'd have drowned in the Ocean of Souls to be devoured by even more horrible predators of the warp. The titan's conscience chirped and giggled as it felt another psyker come by. An abomination who'd taken the place of the blessed Machine Spirit.

I leapt towards the giant and found myself in a distorted likeness of a cockpit. As garishly coloured as the walls of turquoise, purple and azure, a tall command throne towered in the center. A human shape, sickly and twisted, nodded his head hidden under the lazuli-encrusted vulture mask. Blue flamelets flickered through the eye-slits, orbs of fire danced around his hands as he sent another blast at the Lesser Daemons.

'Glad to see you again, honey.' The Iron Seer's hypnotic gaze was drawing me closer. 'The weakest of all, you're here. Now I know what let you survive.'

I gave him a sour smile. 'Just to have a look at your machine. Size doesn't matter, that's it.'

He clenched his armoured fist. 'A Warhound is enough to turn your crew into squealing Chaos Spawn. And you too, once you tell me who's led you in.'

Cold fingers gripped my throat. Sparks of warp-flame scattered over my coat, and roaring fire engulfed me. I fell down to the floor screaming. Searing agony dazzled and deafened me as I gasped for air to no avail.

'It serves you right, sweetie. You've come to my domain where I've got the upper hand.' The Iron Seer clapped his gauntlets chuckling. 'For the Stormbringer, for my wounds, for taking my apprentice from me.'

'You blinded her!' I cried back. 'You wanted to burn us alive when the Sisters gave you a beating!'

'Why will she need eyes when she can see for real? What would you sacrifice for the supreme sight? To alter your petty ability? Soon you'll wake up, blind, deaf, mute, paralyzed. But open to the Immaterium.'

Every nerve of my body was on fire. Stuck in the nightmare, I writhed in pain at the throne dais as the spectral flame was devouring my soul.

A rude husky voice called to the Iron Seer from afar. 'Are you asleep or what? Go on shooting or I'll snap your bird neck.'

'Just a minute, Lord Aspersum. Minor disruption of warp channelling.'

A violent blow threw the seer off his throne. The fire died. I lay star-fished on the cold floor, unable to move. Arcs of warp-lightnings struck the Iron Seer's body, and the titan staggered. The sorcerer was there, raising his staff for another attack. When blobs of unlight flew up from the seer's open palms, the sorcerer snapped his fingers, and a wall of flickering fire unfurled between the Iron Seer and the throne.

'I may be a fool but I still remember what Malagor Auramagma taught me on Prospero, you rusty chicken!' Fire reached the throne machinery, and the contours of the cockpit distorted like images on a broken screen. 'Sincere greetings for your buddies!'

'Out of your bloody mind, you shithead?!' Aspersum yelled at the top of his lungs. A flow of the dirtiest cusses was the last I heard before plunging into the abyss.

I was falling again, falling with nobody to pull me out to the real world. Packs of hungry daemons rounded me up, bit at my hands and legs. I tried to recall any prayer I knew to subdue their cackling. But then a hand gripped me by the collar. Hanging over the depth of the bottomless sea, I squinted at my rescuer. The First Acolyte looked at me with his all-time innocent smile.

'It's good to have creditors, Inquisitor. They will care about your well-being better than even parents or friends.'

The last man I wanted to see at the moment. 'Now I think I'd prefer Imudon,' I spat out. 'Mighty Emperor, spread Your divine light to protect me from the darkness!'

He let me go with a cry of pain. I hit my head against something hard and opened my eyes. Back to the dark calm of the trailer. Dizzy, I dragged my limp legs to the cabin.

The titan lay down on its side, its limbs jerking when discharges of warp energy sparked on the hull. A glimmering silver spire appeared from the pit as the machinery continued digging up the hidden relic. The Iron Warriors had lined up around the dig, shooting back at the unyielding Flamers, their power armour already molten by daemonic fire.

'A nice joke, isn't it?' The sorcerer's tone was utterly happy. 'I bet Aspersum banged the old lunatic around for that. If nerdy Limax dares to approach him today, he'll smack him so hard Limax will fly back to Medrengard without a ship!'

'The Iron Seer nearly mutilated me.'

'You cannot imagine how much fun would you have got from real warp-sight. Wonderful travels and impressions impossible in your physical body.'

'Climb on your witch-broom and fly away to Moronville.' I showed my middle finger to the empty cabin. 'And I'll drive away before they finish the Flamers.' I sent a vox signal to the other trailers and started the engine. The cyber-moth returned, and I stuffed it into my pocket.

'The Moronville where I was born is the holy capital of the Imperium. I thought you had more respect for our Idiocrat.' Wistful tone I didn't expect. Fake as all his other tricks. 'Time for the Rubrics, dear.'

'Wait.' I took the dataslate out of my pocket. The foreman's pict opened on the screen. 'Take a look at the bastard's fancy book. One of yours?'

He giggled. 'How sweet. So we shouldn't roam the galaxy searching for my wonderful library. It's the most expensive of my tomes. A grimoire of a thousand daemon princes of old. Written before the human race stood up on two legs to see the stars above. The ambitious seller of ground cinnamon dreams of binding the siege tower to his will with the captured daemon's true name.'

Beeps from the vox bead. Another transmission signal. I answered trying to ignore the sorcerer's giggles.

'Everything's fine, moving back to the park with the workers.'

'I've already got your logs from Lord Crinitus, Miss Volentia,' said Cichlasoma. 'The heretic is currently besieged in his mansion. Unfortunately, he's taken Lady Melitara hostage. Ystlum's squad is getting ready to conduct a psychic attack on the daemon engine. To be honest, a risky affair.'

'Illicio knows the daemon's true name, my lady.'

'That means I have some job for penitents who are eager to seek the Emperor's forgiveness.' Her sarcastic tone promised a tense end of the crazy day. 'While my acolytes are fighting Illicio's mobsters in the mansion, Lord Crinitus will let you and Plodia in through the ventilation system to his underground hideout. I don't let her eat cinnamon rolls, so don't worry about her getting stuck in the shafts.'

'He can kill Captain Melitara.'

'She's a pious woman and doesn't mind becoming a martyr in His name. If we don't stop the Iron Warriors, billions will suffer a much worse fate.'

I finished the conversation and leaned on the control panel. Headache given by the warp adventure was growing stronger. Yet the sorcerer wasn't going to bugger off.

'Meet you in the basement, girl! You won't save the granny without my help.'

'Enough blabbering. Wish I was a blank.'

Angel was standing in the doorway. I could sense reproach even in the stare of his helmet eye-lenses.

'We are going with you. To protect you from further temptations and dangers.'

'Brother, just be wise and listen well. I know what will happen in the hideout. You bitch at the sorcerer, he turns you into a red gull, I cuss because I've no use for a talking gull who is preaching the Chaplain's textbook.'

'You were talking to him again. He's an enemy of the Emperor. An enemy of Mankind. I won't let you lose your soul to the Ruinous Powers.' He stepped forward activating his power claws.

'You'll rip me to pieces like you did to your Battle-Brothers?' My throat got dry. I raised my head realising there was no way to shield myself from the killing blow. 'And drink my blood like you did under the abomination's influence?'

He hacked at the door with an insane snarl. The workers in the van yelled back. Sister hurried to the cabin pushing her way through the panicking men. She called for calm for a few times before they stopped screaming.

Angel took off his helmet and threw it to the floor. He was panting, his bared fangs giving his handsome face a beastly look. His reddened eyes glistened with tears. Sister took him by both arms.

'Their souls are with Him in His kingdom, brother.'

I wiped my forehead. 'Sister, Fluffster was damn right about the circus of a retinue. But bloodthirsty clowns going bonkers are already enough.'

She blinked, ready to burst into tears herself. 'We're your closest friends. Even earlier, you did risky things. But something happened to you in the shrine of Chaos. You've changed.'

'That's not the reason to kill me. You're the more reasonable out of the two. If you want to be of use tonight, take Uncle and help Lady Cichlasoma's men. I must go to the basement with Lady Plodia. To find out the daemon's name and rescue our brave captain. Or die in His name if He deems me unworthy to live.'

Angel knelt beside me, his bout of rage quenched by his sensitive conscience. But for that, he'd become the exemplary homicidal manic with childish enthusiasm for tearing heads off. Red with shame, he stared at my face like a toddler who'd angered his mother.

'The Emperor has bestowed upon me the power to interact with any threat to the Imperium. Only another Inquisitor has the right to judge me.' I waved my clenched fist in front of his face.

'I was afraid the sorcerer had possessed you. Promise us you won't approach him.'

'Sure. But only if he doesn't approach me first.'

The trailer park was cordoned off by Storm Troopers from Cichlasoma's retinue. The scared guests of the harvest festival holed up in their mobile homes, messy remains of their dinner tables left on the grass. Fluffster walked out of the owl when our vans stopped in an empty corner. He pointed at the mansion hill where bolter shots and lasgun beams flashed in the unlit windows of the Spice King's idyllic palace.

'Plodia is already waiting for you. The acolytes have taken the eastern airshaft, and I'll turn off the security auspexes for a few minutes when you climb down. Illicio isn't afraid of Inquisitors as he relies on his Rubrics. Just in case he succeeds in controlling them, I've added Librarian Gwinwer's vox channel to your contact list. Keep in touch with Plodia.'

Angel led our small group through the lush cinnamon greenery. We slowed down when the carved pavilion of the vent shaft came into sight behind the plantation fencing. A section of the white ornate roof had been removed. A woman in black power armour stepped forward and waved her hand. Plodia Interpunctella had got back her armaments and self-confidence, but still looked little like her official picts from the Ordo digests without her bold makeup and fancy hairstyles. I wondered if Illicio ever recognized the Inquisitor who stormed his quarters was his old trade partner.

Her inhibitor was active so we shook hands, and I took my chainsword and old laspistol from her. My crew headed to the entrance as if we hadn't discussed it in the van. I pushed Angel away from the airshaft without ceremonies. Thanks to his earlier indoctrination, he obeyed the order. Plodia was already descending to the basement, and I gripped the upper clamps so as not to be late to the skirmish.

The airshaft was clean and new, as all buildings of the spice farm. Apart from covert heretical affairs, Illicio, an industrious man, could be called the least problematic businessman of the whole cluster. His immense profit was directed to upgrading and development of his trade, even his tax lists were in full order.

'Even cinnamon for rolls can be heretical now,' I hummed.

'Don't begin that again,' Plodia growled back. 'The old bat has already exercised her tongue enough.'

'Sorry.'

'I don't blame you anyway. You were among the few who didn't badmouth me and my family after the scandal. I'm thinking about resigning and going to Luna but my parents will refuse to move from Uebotia.' She reached the bottom and drew her pistol.

'You shouldn't.' I knew she didn't need advice from me but I felt I had to support her. 'You're a brave fighter. You won over the mistakes, the slander, the worst of enemies. But for you, my team would have perished on the daemon world.'

'I'm a stain on the office of our respectable, prudent Lord Platydoras. He barely tolerates me just for his old ties with the Corydoras family. You know, I'm thinking more often that my career was a mistake from the beginning. I shouldn't have run from my fate of a bun baker.'

With a bitter chuckle, she sent a bolt pistol round to the massive lock on the ventilation grate under our feet. Faint light was oozing from the corridor beneath. Not a single chaotic sigil on the walls yet. I jumped down to the floor, and my feet drowned in the thick fuzzy carpet. The basement was a cheesy place the average city dweller sees in yoghurt or mayo ads daily. Floral wallpapers, cute lamps, massive wooden doors with antique carved ornaments. Emptiness and silence struck me. Deactivated simple servitors of metal and porcelain stood in the doorways with trays or baskets. A psyber-parrot perched on a wall lamp didn't even move its dusty head as we passed by.

Warp buzz was coming from one of the rooms, and I pushed the door. A coffee room, but the owner wanted it to look like a mage library from fairytale movies. Yet a lively smell of food kinda toned down the sorcerous air of the place. Crystals of bizarre shapes were sparkling on the shelves, old leather-bound books with runes and hieroglyphs on well-thumbed covers lay on the table besides dessert plates and silver cezves.

'These look impressive but are definitely fakes like those I would buy in my younger years.' Plodia opened one of the books and put it back.

I looked around trying to locate the source of the buzz. A closed section of the bookshelf. The gold-painted door creaked open. We saw a giant humanoid shape draped in white silk. The cloth slipped down to the floor when Plodia tugged at the edge. Her armoured fingers tapped on the surface, and a hollow sound reached our ears. It was a full suit of sky-blue power armour, standing by itself as if it was worn by a superhuman warrior. The surface bore marks of combat, the tall helmet crest had been hacked off with a blade strike. Gilded emblems on the pauldrons and greaves reminded me of the sorcerer's panoply. I knocked on the ornate breastplate, and the sound echoed in the warp. A shadow of past long gone.

Plodia pressed the button of her inhibitor, and my guts cramped at another collision with a null field. 'Volentia, the first of his Rubricae. Take care.'

She scanned the shelves and flipped another section over. A low door in the wall was barely visible on the irregular wallpaper pattern. Gun in hands, she froze up aiming at the door as we heard careful steps on the other side. The lock tinkled, and another dust marine's blind eyes looked at us from from a narrow corridor. Illicio was peeping out from behind, his face pallid at the unexpected encounter with a blank.

'Another Rubric will slay the captain once you lay a finger on me.' His pupils dilated when he stared down the barrels of our guns but his tone was firm. A remainder of a top merchant's self-possession.

I clenched my teeth so he didn't notice my anxiety. 'If you manage to turn on at least one.'

Plodia made a step forward. The empty suit collapsed on the floor with a deafening rumble. I barely managed to leap back before it could knock me down. Fleeing footsteps shambled away to the other end of the corridor.

'Now we have to get him too,' Plodia shouted. 'Damn, I hate running. And, as usual, no acolytes to send in pursuit of this swift mongrel.'

'Not that swift, Lady Interpunctella. Just a fat bastard.'

'I used to be even fatter. Shake a leg, Volentia!'

She jumped over the fallen Rubric and darted into the passage. As if in spite, my right boot tripped on the marine's gauntlet. My knee slammed into the engraved pauldron, and I saw stars. Even a catatonic traitor continued his war against the servants of the Imperium. I kicked the Rubric with my good leg. A chip of paint broke off from the ceramite. The kick's warp echo sounded like a wistful call but I didn't have time or desire to plunge into visions again.

The passage ended with a half-open door. Quite far from Plodia's null field, I could feel the stench of tainted Immaterium leaking from the inside of the secret room. Furnished and decorated like the other chambers of the basement, it stored the most precious relics of the rogue mage's treasury. Between two piles of stasis caskets and dusty grimoires another wordless warrior in blue was standing frozen with a plasma pistol in his hand. At his feet I saw Lady Melitara, overcast with sorcerous slumber. On the top of the taller pile there was the small book wrapped in greasy paper. The daemon's name.

Illicio met us with all his courage. Holding the paralyzed captain at gunpoint, he took a wrinkled piece of parchment out of the pocket of his dressing gown. He read a few unwords out loud and looked at the Rubric with a triumphant smile. The Rubric wasn't going to move. Illicio shouted a new spell. His voice failed him. With a desperate cuss he grabbed the pistol with both hands and smacked the meek dust warrior on the chest.

'What a shithead, do you agree, ladies?' A gull-headed giant stepped out of nowhere, leaning on his staff. Illicio squealed and darted back, but the sorcerer grabbed him by the collar. 'Don't be afraid. I've brought you the best gift you could ever imagine. You wanna be a real mage, don't you.'

He stuffed his staff into the dazed Spice King's hands. The bird head on the top gave out a shrill cry. Illicio's scream of pain joined in. Skin on his plump face popped here and there, and glowing eyes stared at us from his cheeks and forehead. Clawed, feathered limbs burst through the tearing dressing gown. Twisting and bloating as raw energy of the warp was filling him, Illicio dropped the magic weapon.

'Well, at least his dream came true.' The sorcerer bowed down to Lady Melitara. Plodia raised her gun but he wagged his finger at her. 'Hi, granny. I'm Miss Volentia's good friend and I've come to cheer you up.'

'She'll be pissed off.' I gritted my teeth.

'I know.'

Melitara's eyes widened. 'Accursed traitor.' She turned her head and passed out again at the sight of the writhing Chaos Spawn.

'Granny, don't be that rude. Try to keep an open mind.' He shook her hand and beckoned Plodia. 'You remember me well, Lady Interpunctella. Years of pushing forward the damn barge, because of your efforts. Now come with me. It's your turn to have fun. I wish you weren't a blank but there are many fancy things one can do even to a null.'

I sighed and activated the vox. 'Librarian, quicker. A serious threat.'

The sorcerer showed me his middle finger. The Rubric came to life. His eye lenses lit with eerie light, he turned his head left and right, then made a step towards the sorcerer. Heavy footsteps thudded on the floor, muffled by carpets. Two from the previous rooms, two from the closets of the hidden chamber. As the sorcerer snapped his fingers, a gaping hole opened in the air right before us. Aether wind blew in. Books rustled under the gusts growing stronger. Next moment they were already hovering around the sorcerer like a flock of motley birds.

The tiny grimoire fell down to my feet. 'A farewell gift, girl. The iron assholes deserve that.' The sorcerer leapt to the portal along with his squad, and the hole closed. Only a few dim sparks lingered around for a second or two.

I breathed out but startled at the insane howl of the Chaos Spawn. Free after the sorcerer's departure, the former Spice King opened his mutated maw and spat out a blast of psychic flame. Plodia rushed forward shouting curses. I pressed the chainsword throttle. Before a bony limb could sink its claws in Captain Melitara's side, I hacked it off with a precise blow.

Another flame blob brushed against my shoulder when the Chaos Spawn darted out of Plodia's null field. My sleeve started smoking. Shots left torn holes in the abomination's azure hide but every one of them turned into an eye socket or fanged mouth breathing fire. It lashed out with a dozen limbs at once. Next moment, Plodia was already down on the floor, deadly claws ripping her power armour as if it was fire.

A flash of white light shine behind, and an impact wave threw me to the bookshelves. The Chaos Spawn's aura of taint started shrinking as the chamber was basked in psychic radiance. A giant in silvery ceramite swung his force weapon. The abomination attacked the new adversary with doubled ferocity but withdrew with a scream, its claws molten at the touch of holy symbols etched in the Grey Knight's armour. Gwinwer's single strike nearly cut the former Spice King in half. Steaming ichor streamed from the wound leaving burns on the carpet. Before it could assault him again, Librarian Gwinwer uttered a thunderous litany. Purifying light flooded the chamber. A gut-wrenching psychic yell almost left me deaf. When the flash died out, a pile of charred flesh lay smouldering at our feet.

Gwinwer picked up Captain Melitara, and I sensed his psychic glance touch her soul. 'She suffered a heart attack. I will give her a shot of emergency stimulators but she needs immediate evacuation.'

My eyes smarted. I looked down at my feet. 'There's a field medic in my team. My acolytes will deliver the captain to her ship.'

A mighty psyker, he understood everything. 'Every man is a sinner, my lady. You will make it right, and the Emperor will forgive you. The threat to the planet is not vanquished yet. Your atonement demands fighting to the end.'

Plodia sat up, her armour mauled by the Chaos Spawn's claws but not a single wound on her body. The well-thumbed grimoire in hand, I followed her to the exit. Gwinwer brought the rear carrying unconscious Captain Melitara.

It was kind of a blur. As if in a tedious dream I couldn't wake up from, I gave out orders to my crew, got into the owl waiting for me by the burning mansion. I doubted the Grey Knights ever needed my presence but I felt I had to do at least something after a long row of fails one worse than another. A day to learn the price of a single fail, not in the hardest way, Emperor be praised. Combating the daemon engine, I could acquit myself for losing the staff to its owner, but I had betrayed and lost a staunch supporter and friend who had agreed to break her code of honour to serve the Emperor.

Trying to stay in Plodia's aura, I turned a few yellowed pages. Eerie symbols were dancing before my eyes, lines almost impossible to read let alone keep a single word in mind. Gwinwer took the book from me when the owl was getting close to the dig. Despite Cichlasoma's cold reaction, he had agreed to get to the fray by owl. To save the remains of my reputation.

Burnt corpses of the fallen Iron Warriors lay around the pit. The siege tower, fully unearthed by unyielding machines, cast cold pallid light on their charred armour. Three Thunderhawks had descended from orbit to haul the tower up to Aspersum's barge on giant sigil-engraved chains. Warp buzz from the inside made me shiver. It had got so loud I bet even non-psykers could hear it by now.

Gwinwer opened the grimoire, and I recognized the greasy page from the foreman's pict. 'I wouldn't advise it, my lady, but you may join the choir now. Beware so the daemon's backlash doesn't tear your soul out of your body.'

I closed my eyes concentrating on his radiant aura. A moment - and I plunged into a sea of light streaming through the joint minds of the Grey Knights. The light turned into a wave of purifying flame that engulfed the material shell of the deformed warp spawn that stirred and awakened inside. The Iron Seer's sorcerous leash broke off, the Thunderhawks stopped hovering over the field, held in their place by the daemon prince. Malignant will clashed with the combined might of the psychic choir.

Gwinwer's powerful voice uttered the first cacophonous syllables of the daemon's name. Only blanks and Grey Knights fully devoted to the Emperor could pronounce daemons' unholy names without the risk of getting corrupted or insane. Even Sisters of Battle avoided the ritual so as not to get in touch with foul sorcery. I listened to the unword, old pain of the mark smarting again. Aether flame was rising in the glowing hull of the engine to break free before the name rendered it powerless.

The final syllables pealed like thunderbolts. A spear of light pierced the shell, and I whispered a prayer to do my tiny bit of the crushing blow. The daemon screamed, and its semi-material form popped like a rotten apple. Dissolving into thinning warp smoke, it evaporated through the crack in the hull. A lifeless metal husk was left behind.

The Thunderhawks' engines came alive once the aura of unrest had vanished. They dragged the damaged remains of the siege engine to the sky already getting light at dawn. I flopped to the seat and closed my eyes. Only out of the adrenaline rush I felt how tiresome all today's adventures had been.

'It is a shame we do not have enough forces to stop the Iron Warriors,' said Gwinwer. 'They will repair the daemon engine to use it against the Imperium.'

My vox beeped right when his voice was almost out of reach, drowned out by drowse overwhelming me. Lady Cichlasoma. 'Miss Volentia, I've ordered your luggage to be carried to my ship. You've screwed the captain over so she'll remember your crew for the rest of her life. I don't want her to die too early because of another Radical venture.'

I blinked tears of shame back. 'I've got a few rare gems left in my pouch. Please leave them on the Perseverant for Lady Melitara.'

'Don't you think money can solve any problems? Well, it would be a good lesson for you to collect deposit bottles for a month or two on Uebotia.'

I reached for Uncle's minibar and poured myself a shot of amasec. 'Radicalism adds a pinch of spice to an Inquisitor's life, my mentor used to say. But he didn't realize it's poisonous if you overdo it.'


	8. Epilogue

Epilogue

Grey ships were sailing through the storm with no land in sight. The eerie glowing auras of the crew stuck between life and death still irked the sorcerer though he had travelled aboard his legion-brother's ghost ship for many times, fleeing from another bothersome detractors.

Ashur-Kai had never been cheerful even in the merry days on Earth. A sickly albino boy kept alive by his powerful mind had grown into a man, but his cautious demeanour hadn't changed after the double change of colours. Be it the Despoiler's black or the spectral grey, he used his ability to retreat from the mess and noise of the world gone nuts. The same child on the strand listening to the whispers of seashells. Able to drift with the current, avoiding rough edges and hidden rocks with his mere sixth sense.

He barely said a word to the sorcerer's stories when they sat on the bridge looking at the changing landscapes of the warp outside of the oculus.

'You say it's irrelevant like always,' the sorcerer said with a smile, 'but I'm puzzled by more and more encounters with the thing. People with marks in the ranks of the Guard, the Inquisition.'

'I won't.' Ashur-Kai preferred voiceless speech, and even his psychic whisper was feeble like rustling leaves. 'I've seen them. Their traces. I felt it come closer when we left the Eye for the first venture.'

'I know I should stop digging deeper but you know my blood damn admiration of all things curious. Let me make up my mind where we should go next. It's just glorious to have a childhood friend around a hundred centuries after you had left your homeworld. Our modern Imperium peers cannot afford it.'

Ashur-Kai shook his head. 'Sorry to disappoint you. I'm coming back to the Vengeful Spirit.'

'You know, I've always been ironical about Ezekyle's big dream. A dog with a bone.'

'He's got too far to get off the train. Things are changing right now. I see it, you see it. Go on searching for more omens and signs.'

The sorcerer took a turquoise pendant shaped like a gull out of his pouch. 'That's what's left of my ship.'

A spark of distress in Ashur-Kai's cold aura. 'And he's...'

'I've managed to hide him in the most arcane of my warp shelters. So we're still four.'

'Out of five. Five cherished kids from a wealthy ex-empire who had left their gardens and strands for the cold void and tainted aether.'

When the grey fleet entered the fickle tides of the Eye beyond the Cadian Gate, the sorcerer's hearts skipped a beat. The Despoiler had surpassed all his previous ambitions. The greatest armada since the majestic days of the Crusade had gathered around the ominous flagship of black and gold. Mixed colours of all the exiled legions who had sworn to follow the desperate orphan who promised them a better life. Promised them life, he'd better say, as the Eye itself was boiling with hunger and wrath as of to expel or devour its mortal squatters.

When they were going to say goodbye, another warrior appeared on the bridge. Dressed in the black of Abaddon's army, he wore intricate pieces of augmetics.

'I hope you'll befriend my successor,' said Ashur-Kai, donning his old Black Legion helmet. 'He's from Earth, like us.'

'Another scion of the Achaemenids.' The warrior's metallic voice was famous to the sorcerer, as well as his grumpy aura.

'Oh my, I'm already fed up with the Fourth,' he chuckled but shook the former Fleetmaster's gauntlet.

 **Next episode:** **s/13058743/1/Volume-1-Episode-7-Against-the-Crooked-Sky**


End file.
